Kraken has acquired tokenized asset issuer Backed Finance to scale xStocks and lead the fast-growing market for onchain equities.
Quick Summary – TLDR:
- Kraken announced the acquisition of Backed Finance to expand its xStocks tokenized equities platform.
- xStocks has crossed $10 billion in combined trading volume within just six months.
- The deal comes amid Kraken’s broader expansion strategy and ahead of its planned 2026 IPO.
- Backed’s infrastructure and team will now fully integrate into Kraken’s product ecosystem, improving reach, compliance, and innovation.
What Happened?
Kraken, one of the largest global cryptocurrency exchanges, has acquired Backed Finance, the Swiss-based firm behind the fast-growing xStocks platform. The acquisition aims to supercharge the adoption of tokenized equities globally and enhance Kraken’s infrastructure for onchain financial products.
📣 We’re bringing @BackedFi, the company driving the issuance of xStocks, fully into Kraken.
— Kraken (@krakenfx) December 2, 2025
Why? Because tokenized equities won’t reach global scale without unified rails.
With @xStocksFi now fully in-house, we’re accelerating the future of open, 24/7 capital markets 👇…
Kraken Bets Big on Tokenized Equities
Kraken’s acquisition of Backed marks a strategic move in the rapidly expanding market for tokenized public stocks. Backed has issued onchain representations of over 60 tokenized equities and ETFs, each backed 1:1 by underlying securities. These assets are live on Ethereum and Solana, with more chains like TON, Tron, Mantle, and BNB Chain being integrated soon.
Since launching earlier in 2025, xStocks has seen tremendous uptake, surpassing $10 billion in total onchain and exchange trading volume. Users can trade these assets 24/5 on Kraken and 24/7 onchain, bridging traditional and crypto markets through a seamless experience.
With this acquisition, Kraken now controls the full lifecycle of tokenized equity products from issuance to settlement. It also consolidates a fragmented legal and operational framework that previously spanned multiple jurisdictions, including Jersey, Switzerland, and the US. This unification is expected to simplify compliance and accelerate product innovation.
Integration Will Fuel Kraken’s Global Push
Bringing Backed fully into Kraken’s ecosystem will allow deeper alignment on product development and strategy. Kraken will integrate xStocks into its full product suite, including Krak, its global money app, enabling users to hold and spend tokenized stocks as easily as fiat or crypto.
Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Kraken, commented:
The acquisition also comes shortly after Kraken raised $800 million in new funding, with backing from major firms like Citadel Securities, and as the exchange confidentially filed for a 2026 U.S. IPO.
Backed Co-Founder Adam Levi praised the deal, saying:
Backed’s Tech Backbone to Stay Active
Founded in 2021, Backed has quietly become the second-largest issuer of tokenized public equities, with about 23 percent market share, according to RWA.xyz. Its infrastructure is already used by other platforms such as Bybit and Mantle to offer tokenized stocks like Nvidia.
Under Kraken’s ownership, Backed will continue to support its existing tokens while gaining access to larger capital pools and wider distribution. The move also solidifies Kraken’s role as a key player in the tokenization of real-world assets, an area expected to hit $2 trillion by 2028, as projected by Standard Chartered.
SQ Magazine’s Takeaway
I love seeing bold moves like this. Kraken is not just playing catch-up in the tokenized asset game but it’s making a full-court press. By bringing Backed into its fold, Kraken is essentially taking control of one of the most promising bridges between crypto and traditional finance. Tokenization is no longer just a buzzword. It’s real, it’s happening, and Kraken clearly wants to lead the charge. If they execute this right, they won’t just be a crypto exchange, they’ll be a modern financial infrastructure provider. That’s big.
