Kraken has launched US-listed stock trading for customers in the European Economic Area under its MiFID II authorisation.
The cryptocurrency exchange announced that eligible customers based in the EEA can now trade more than 7.000 US-listed stocks through Kraken Pro and the Kraken mobile app. The offering sits alongside the platform's existing cryptocurrency trading service, which covers more than 600 digital assets, and its xStocks product, which provides tokenised versions of more than 700 US-listed equities.
Combining traditional and tokenised equities
Kraken said the launch allows EEA-based customers to access both traditional US-listed shares and their tokenised equivalents within a single regulated account. xStocks are described as fully collateralised instruments, backed one-to-one by the underlying shares. Unlike conventional equities, which are restricted to stock exchange trading hours and settlement through traditional brokerage infrastructure, tokenised equities can be transferred to self-custody wallets, used within blockchain-based applications, and traded outside standard market hours, while remaining fully backed by the underlying asset.
Mark Greenberg, Chief Commercial Officer of Payward and Head of Payward Services, said the addition of traditional US stocks removes the separation between the two formats, allowing customers to choose between share-based or token-based exposure to the same underlying asset without transferring funds between platforms.
Regulatory basis and market context
The equities service is provided through Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, Kraken's European entity, which holds authorisation as a MiFID investment firm. This authorisation allows Kraken to offer commission-free access to US-listed stocks within a regulated framework across the EEA.
The launch addresses a structural issue that European investors have faced when seeking exposure to US capital markets: access has typically required using multiple brokerage platforms, transferring funds across providers, and navigating inconsistent product ranges. Some brokers have offered limited cryptocurrency access, but according to Kraken, few have combined a full range of US equities with tokenised equivalents on a single trading platform.
Since their launch, xStocks have recorded transaction volume of more than EUR 33 billion (an approximate conversion of the USD figure reported by Kraken), which the company attributes to demand from investors seeking blockchain-based access to capital markets.
Kraken has said it plans to extend the integrated equities offering to additional markets in the coming months, as part of a broader move toward offering trading across multiple asset classes on a single platform.
