London Stock Exchange to Work With Payward to Bring Largest UK Stocks Onchain
Key Takeaways
- •The London Stock Exchange and Payward plan to list tokenized versions of the 100 largest LSE-listed companies over the coming weeks.
- •xStocks are backed one-for-one by the underlying shares and can trade 24/7 on centralized exchanges, in self-custody wallets and across onchain applications.
- •Payward said xStocks have generated more than $40 billion in trading volume in just over a year, with nearly $20 billion settled onchain and more than 200,000 holders.
- •The arrangement could allow U.K.-listed shares to reach investors in more than 110 countries, although xStocks are not available to U.K.-based investors.
- •The LSE said it will start listing xStocks on LSE 24 if regulators approve the plan and will explore issuing native LSE equity tokens onchain.
London Stock Exchange to Work With Payward to Bring Largest UK Stocks Onchain
TradFi just can’t get enough of tokenization.
On Tuesday, the London Stock Exchange (LSEG) and Payward, the owner of crypto exchange Kraken, said they will bring shares of the U.K.’s largest listed companies to the blockchain.
Over the coming weeks, the 100 largest LSE-listed companies will be made available on Payward’s xStocks tokenized equities framework. The tokens, or xStocks, are one-to-one-backed versions of the underlying shares that can trade 24/7 on centralized exchanges, in self-custody wallets and across onchain applications.
The project reflects a shift that has been underway in other public markets for at least two years: tokenizing real-world assets such as equities, bonds and commodities, then issuing blockchain-based versions that can trade more easily than the underlying instruments. For exchanges and brokers, that makes tokenization less of a side experiment and more of a test of whether traditional market infrastructure can be extended into new trading venues without changing the assets themselves.
A share held in a traditional brokerage account settles during exchange hours and clears through a chain of intermediaries in a process that can take days. Its tokenized counterpart can move instantly, 24/7, into a self-custodied wallet or a DeFi protocol, while tracking the same underlying price.
The move extends a framework that is already scaling quickly. In just over a year, xStocks have generated more than $40 billion in total trading volume. Nearly $20 billion of that volume was settled onchain, and the products now have more than 200,000 holders, Payward said.
Read more: NYSE owner ICE taps tZERO for tokenized securities push, takes stake in firm
The agreement also means U.K.-listed shares will be able to reach an investor base across more than 110 countries via blockchain rails. However, xStocks are not currently available to U.K.-based investors.
Subject to regulatory approval, the LSE said it will begin listing xStocks and supporting their trading on LSE 24, its recently announced 24-hour venue. The plan could eventually span tokenized equities from the U.S., EU, U.K. and Hong Kong, along with additional asset classes as the framework expands.
The two companies also said they will explore natively LSE-issued equity tokens, allowing LSE members to issue and service shares onchain directly, with full fungibility and the same rights as traditional stock.
"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," said Arjun Sethi, Payward's co-CEO, in a statement.
