The London Stock Exchange is moving to put shares of Britain’s 100 largest listed companies onto blockchain rails, striking a partnership with Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, to issue tokenized versions of UK blue chips under the xStocks framework.

The two companies announced the agreement on September 1, saying the first batch of London-listed equities will become available as xStocks within weeks to eligible investors in more than 110 countries. UK-based investors, however, will not have access to the products at launch, as xStocks remain unavailable domestically.

Each xStock is backed one-to-one by the corresponding underlying security, allowing the blockchain-based products to trade around the clock through supported centralized exchanges, move into self-custody wallets, and interact with compatible onchain applications. Payward said the platform has generated more than $40 billion in cumulative trading volume since its launch just over a year ago, with nearly $20 billion of that activity settled directly onchain. The products have attracted more than 200,000 holders.

LSE 24 as a Regulated Venue

Beyond distribution through Payward’s existing network, the partnership contemplates listing xStocks on LSE 24, the exchange’s recently announced round-the-clock trading venue, subject to regulatory approval. The platform is scheduled to go live in the first half of 2027, with exchange-traded products expected to come first and client testing slated before the end of this year.

The exchange plans to eventually expand the venue to cover tokenized equities from the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong, with other asset classes potentially added as the framework develops.

A separate element of the agreement would take the companies beyond blockchain representations backed by conventionally issued shares. Payward and the LSE said they will explore natively issued equity tokens, which would allow exchange members to issue and service shares directly onchain. Under that model, blockchain-issued securities would be fully fungible with their traditional counterparts and carry the same rights as conventional shares.

That differs from the current xStocks structure, where tokens are issued against securities held through the product’s underlying custody framework. Nearly every tokenized equity trading today is a wrapper: investors get price exposure through a token backed by shares sitting with a custodian, without the voting rights or direct claim that comes with holding the stock itself.

Competitive Landscape

Tokenized equities now sit at roughly $2.5 billion, up about 267% year to date, according to data from rwa.xyz. Ondo leads the category with around $840 million, while xStocks held approximately $606 million in August. Binance’s bStocks, launched just two months earlier, had already reached about $593 million.

The competitive pressure is not hypothetical. Coinbase has already launched 24/5 US stock trading for UK users, staking an early claim on the same audience this partnership would target. Binance won ground on distribution by bringing new users into tokenized stocks rather than pulling them off competing platforms.

For Payward, the LSE deal represents a supply-side answer to a demand-side challenge. Exclusive access to FTSE’s top names, distributed to 110 countries, wrapped in the credibility of an exchange that has been operating since the 1600s, gives xStocks an inventory advantage. Binance can list faster, but it cannot list what it does not have.

Whether that advantage holds depends entirely on exclusivity. If LSEG signs similar agreements with other issuers over the next year, Payward’s edge lasts about as long as the paperwork takes. If it does not, xStocks becomes the only venue outside the US where a trader can get onchain exposure to the London market.

Leadership Perspectives

Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi framed the arrangement as a combination of regulated financial markets and blockchain infrastructure. “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,” he said.

LSE CEO Julia Hoggett took a more cautious position on how tokenized markets should be developed. Tokenization “must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets,” she said.

Payward has been accelerating its international expansion throughout 2026. In July, the company partnered with financial infrastructure provider GTN to expand xStocks internationally, beginning with Hong Kong-listed shares before targeting the UK, Europe, South Korea and other approved markets. By August 18, xStocks had processed more than $38 billion in total transaction volume as Kraken rolled out 7,000 US stocks to eligible customers across the European Economic Area.

The London Stock Exchange Group’s shares fell roughly 2% in early London trading Tuesday following the announcement.