The London Stock Exchange (LSE) Group is partnering with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, to bring some of the U.K.'s biggest listed companies on-chain, adding another major traditional market to the rapidly expanding xStocks platform.

Subject to regulatory approval, LSE plans to list xStocks on its new 24-hour venue, LSE 24, in 2027. The tokens will represent U.K.-listed shares and enable round-the-clock trading while retaining the market safeguards and governance standards of traditional equities. The move reflects a broader pattern of incumbent exchanges responding to competition from crypto-native platforms: as tokenized equities gain traction, established venues have sought to offer blockchain-based trading themselves rather than cede the market to crypto firms. The emphasis on retaining traditional market safeguards also speaks to a long-running regulatory question — how tokenized securities fit within existing investor-protection frameworks — which U.K. regulators will need to resolve before the 2027 launch.

Julia Hoggett, CEO of the London Stock Exchange, said tokenization "must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets."

Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, said in a statement: "For years, the assumption was that crypto and traditional finance were on a collision course, and one of them would have to lose. That was never the real story."

The deal extends xStocks' push beyond U.S. equities. In July 2026, Payward said it was expanding the platform to stocks from the U.K., Hong Kong, South Korea, and other markets, as exchanges and crypto firms compete to put global equities on blockchains.

The scale of that expansion is already significant. According to xStocks, the platform has surpassed $40 billion in cumulative transaction volume, including nearly $20 billion traded on-chain, with nearly 200,000 holders in just over a year. It has also grown to more than 100 partners and seven blockchain ecosystems, with more than 500 tokenized equities in its pipeline. Whether similar exchange partnerships follow in the other markets targeted for expansion — and how the planned LSE 24 launch navigates the U.K. approval process — will be key markers of whether tokenized equities move from crypto platforms into mainstream market infrastructure.

For further context, the SpaceX IPO on-chain allocations failure exposed key underlying risks in tokenization (case study), South African crypto exchange VALR pioneered xStocks in South Africa (more here), and tokenized stock transfer volume jumped by over 400% in August 2026 (statistics).