US-based crypto trade Kraken has agreed to accumulate Backed Finance AG, the corporate behind the issuance of xStocks, including to a string of acquisitions the trade has made this yr whereas bringing the tokenized-equities platform beneath its roof.
In keeping with Tuesday’s announcement, Kraken plans to combine xStocks’ issuance, buying and selling and settlement extra tightly into its merchandise, together with its world cash app, whereas increasing help to extra blockchains and markets.
XStocks is a platform that points tokenized variations of publicly traded equities, corresponding to shares and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). It presently provides over 60 tokenized merchandise and has recorded greater than $10 billion in mixed trade and onchain quantity since launching earlier this yr.
The tokenized belongings are reside on the Solana and Ethereum blockchains, with buying and selling obtainable 24/7 onchain. They are often self-custodied and used throughout a number of networks, in accordance with xStocks.
The acquisition comes after Kraken rolled out Backed’s xStocks product to eligible European customers in September.
Kraken additionally operates the xStocks Alliance, a community of partnered chains and buying and selling venues. Kraken stated the acquisition will consolidate that community and help broader interoperability and liquidity as extra markets add tokenized equities. The businesses didn’t disclose the phrases of the deal.
Kraken, which submitted a confidential US IPO submitting in November, has been energetic on the acquisition entrance this yr. In Could, it acquired NinjaTrader, adopted by the proprietary buying and selling platform Breakout in September, and Small Alternate, a delegated contract market, in October.
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Tokenized equities acquire traction throughout main platforms
The rise of tokenized equities, digital tokens that characterize possession of conventional shares on a blockchain, has turn out to be one of many yr’s most outstanding crypto tendencies.
In June, xStocks launched on Bybit, Kraken and several other Solana-based DeFi platforms. The lineup consisted of tokenized variations of blue-chip shares, together with Netflix, Meta, Coinbase, Amazon, Nvidia, McDonald’s, Apple, Tesla and Microsoft.
That very same month, world buying and selling platform Robinhood launched a layer-2 blockchain on Arbitrum and rolled out tokenized inventory buying and selling for European Union customers. The platform debuted with greater than 200 US inventory and ETF tokens, tradeable 24/5 with no fee.
In keeping with Dune Analytics knowledge, Robinhood has 943 tokenized shares and ETFs reside on Arbitrum, with a complete onchain worth of about $10.8 million.
RWA.xyz individually tracks roughly $656 million in regulated tokenized public shares, with $1.14 billion in month-to-month switch quantity and about 118,000 holders. Amongst regulated issuers, Ondo holds about 52% of the market, adopted by Backed Finance at 24% and Securitize at 20%.
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