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London Stock Exchange to work with Payward to bring biggest UK stocks onchain
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- DeepHorus
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has announced a landmark partnership with Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, to tokenize shares of the 100 largest UK-listed companies. This initiative will leverage Payward's xStocks framework, which creates blockchain-based, one-to-one backed versions of traditional equities. The collaboration marks a significant step in bringing major UK blue-chip stocks onto the blockchain for 24/7 trading.
The project will initially make these tokenized shares, or xStocks, available for trading across centralized exchanges, self-custody wallets, and on-chain applications. This represents a growing trend of tokenizing real-world assets to enhance liquidity and accessibility. Traditionally, share settlement can take days through intermediaries, but a tokenized asset can transfer instantly at any time.
Payward's xStocks framework has already demonstrated significant scale, generating over $40 billion in total trading volume in just over a year. Nearly $20 billion of that volume was settled on-chain, and the tokens now have more than 200,000 holders. This partnership could extend access to UK-listed shares to investors in over 110 countries, though xStocks are not yet available to UK-based investors.
Subject to regulatory approval, LSEG plans to list xStocks on its new 24-hour venue, LSE 24. The long-term vision includes exploring fully fungible equity tokens with the same legal rights as traditional stock, potentially allowing LSE members to issue and service shares directly on-chain. The two companies envision a future where tokenized equities from the US, EU, UK, and Hong Kong trade alongside other asset classes.
Industry leaders framed the deal as a convergence of traditional finance and crypto. Payward's co-CEO, Arjun Sethi, stated the two sectors are not on a collision course. LSEG CEO Julia Hoggett offered a more cautious perspective, emphasizing that tokenization must develop while preserving the trust and rights of regulated markets.
The move comes as financial institutions increasingly explore tokenized assets as productive collateral to unlock liquidity and credit creation. Despite the strategic announcement, LSEG's shares fell 2% in early London trading. The partnership awaits final regulatory approvals but signals a clear push to modernize the infrastructure of public equity markets.
