Kraken xStocks is a collection of tokenized US equities issued by Backed Finance on Solana and listed on Kraken for non-US users. The lineup went live on May 22, 2025 with roughly 60 tickers, AAPL, NVDA, TSLA, AMZN, MSFT, COIN, MSTR, and the SPY ETF among them, trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with settlement on Solana rather than DTCC.
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Kraken xStocks represent 1:1 economic exposure to underlying US-listed stocks and ETFs. They launched as Solana SPL tokens and are now issued natively on Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Mantle, TON, Ink and other EVM networks, per the xStocks documentation. Each token is collateralized by shares custodied at a Backed Finance prime broker in Switzerland, redeemable by qualified investors, and tradable on Kraken Pro spot markets quoted in USD and USDT around the clock.
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Kraken launched the product in partnership with Backed. The issuing entity is Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey special purpose vehicle registered with the Jersey Financial Services Commission and dedicated solely to issuing and redeeming xStocks, not a Swiss-regulated issuer. Tickers follow an "x" suffix convention, AAPLx, TSLAx, NVDAx, SPYx. Proof of reserves and the per-ticker contract addresses are published on the xStocks product page.
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The initial roster covered approximately 60 names spanning mega-cap tech (AAPL, NVDA, MSFT, AMZN, GOOGL, META), retail-favorite single-stocks (TSLA, COIN, MSTR, PLTR, GME), and one broad-market ETF (SPY). Kraken has signaled additional tickers will roll out based on demand, but the on-listing set is the high-volume US universe rather than international or small-cap names.
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Trades execute on Kraken's spot orderbook against USD or USDT, and settle as SPL token transfers on Solana. Users can keep tokens custodied at Kraken, withdraw to a self-custody Solana wallet such as Phantom, or move them to DeFi venues. Off-hours pricing follows orderbook activity, not NYSE closing prints, so the quote can drift from the reference equity overnight.
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The mechanics depart from a traditional brokerage in three concrete ways. First, the matching engine is Kraken's CLOB rather than a routed order to a market maker connected to NYSE or NASDAQ, there is no NBBO obligation and no Reg NMS routing. Second, settlement is T+0 on Solana (sub-second finality, fees under a cent) instead of T+1 through DTCC. Third, the token itself is a bearer asset once withdrawn: whoever holds the SPL token holds the claim, subject to Backed's redemption gates for KYC-cleared qualified investors.
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Trading hours are the headline difference. US equities trade roughly 6.5 hours a day on the primary exchanges (9:30–4:00 ET), extending to about 16 hours including pre- and post-market. xStocks trade 24/7 with no scheduled halt, which means weekend earnings reactions, overnight macro events, and Asia-session moves all price through Kraken's book rather than being trapped behind a closed exchange.
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xStocks are explicitly not available to US persons. Kraken's geo-restrictions block US residents, and Backed's offering documents exclude US, Canadian, UK, and several other jurisdictions in line with the issuer's EU prospectus regime. Eligible users include residents of much of the EU, Latin America, Asia (excluding mainland China and a few others), and Africa, subject to Kraken's KYC.
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The geographic carve-outs reflect securities law rather than technology. Backed's base prospectus is approved by the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority under the EU Prospectus Regulation and passported across the EEA; each token is a bearer debt instrument classified as a tracker certificate, which is a recognized product category in Europe but has no equivalent SEC framework. US-domiciled tokenized-equity competitors like Dinari's dShares use a different SEC-registered structure to reach US accredited investors, that path is closed to Backed.
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xStocks do not sit on Kraken's ordinary crypto fee schedule. Kraken's published fee schedule gives xStocks their own table: on Kraken Pro the maker fee is -0.02% (a rebate) and the taker fee 0.10%, falling to 0.08% above $100M of 30-day volume. On the main Kraken app there are no trading fees at all when buying xStocks with USD or USDG, and the standard 1% instant buy/sell fee when paying with any other asset. A spread may be built into the quoted price to lock it in. Backed charges no separate per-trade fee but earns a spread on primary issuance and redemption, plus any pass-through corporate-action costs.
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The cost comparison flips on access and time. A US-commission-free broker is unavailable to most non-US users, and even where it is available (e.g., Interactive Brokers internationally), trades are gated to exchange hours, require local FX, and settle T+1 with custody at DTCC. For a São Paulo retail user wanting NVDA exposure on a Sunday night, the xStock is the only path that actually executes, and at a 0.10% taker fee on Kraken Pro it is cheaper than the crypto fee schedule would suggest.
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Three live venues sell tokenized equities to non-US users in 2026, each with different structure and trade-offs. Kraken xStocks runs Backed's tokens through an exchange interface. Robinhood launched its own tokenized stocks for EU users in mid-2025 on Arbitrum, using a Robinhood-issued wrapper rather than a third-party issuer. Backed sells the same xStock tokens directly through its own portal to qualified investors.

The practical difference: Kraken offers the deepest secondary-market liquidity of the three, Robinhood offers the most familiar app experience for EU retail, and Backed direct is the route for treasuries or funds that want primary issuance and redemption rights. Dinari is the only one of the four with a path to US accredited investors.
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Redemption is gated to KYC-cleared qualified investors transacting directly with Backed, not to retail Kraken users. A retail holder exits xStock exposure by selling the token on Kraken's orderbook back to USD or USDT. Qualified investors who pass Backed's onboarding can redeem 1:1 for the underlying share value in cash, subject to settlement windows and minimum sizes.
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This is the most important asterisk on the "tokenized stock" framing. A retail xStock holder does not have a direct line to the underlying AAPL share, the redemption right sits with the issuer's institutional channel. In practice that has not broken the peg: Backed's market makers arbitrage primary redemption against Kraken's orderbook, which keeps xStock prices tight to reference NYSE quotes during US hours. Off-hours, the peg widens; weekend earnings reactions have moved single names 3–5% before the underlying re-opens.
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Backed does not distribute dividends as cash. Per the xStocks corporate-actions docs, the custodian receives the dividend and reinvests it into additional shares of the same stock, net of applicable withholding, and the gain reaches holders through an onchain rebasing multiplier that raises their balance. Splits and reverse splits move the same multiplier proportionally. The multiplier is published onchain and activates at 00:30 UTC the day after the ex-date. Holders take no action, and no separate USDC airdrop is involved.
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Voting is the clearest gap versus direct share ownership. xStock holders are economic-exposure holders, not registered shareholders, and Backed votes the underlying shares per its custodian agreement, typically not at all, or with the broker's default policy. For a passive long-NVDA bet this is irrelevant. For activist or governance use cases, xStocks are not a substitute for direct registration.
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Kraken settles xStocks on Solana, while most stablecoin treasuries live on Ethereum L2s or alternative chains. Funding an xStock buy on Kraken from a USDC balance on Base or Arbitrum requires a cross-chain transfer to Solana before the deposit. Eco's stablecoin routing covers USDC and USDT moves into Solana, which removes one step for users sourcing dollars from an EVM treasury into a Kraken xStocks position.
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Sources and methodology. Launch date and ticker list verified against Kraken's May 22, 2025 announcement. Issuer, prospectus and corporate-action mechanics from the xStocks documentation. Trading-fee schedules from Kraken's published fee page, checked 15 September 2026. Chain context from DeFiLlama. xStocks pricing dynamics vs reference equities are descriptive of typical off-hours behavior, not a guarantee.
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