Kraken has agreed to accumulate Backed Finance, the tokenized asset issuer behind its xStocks product. The deal brings the issuer contained in the trade as tokenized equities achieve traction.
Kraken Deepens xStocks Push With Backed Deal
In response to weblog put up, Kraken didn’t disclose monetary phrases. The transfer comes as Kraken prepares for a deliberate 2026 IPO.
Backed points on chain representations of about 71 belongings throughout public equities and ETFs. Every token is backed one-for-one by the underlying safety. The agency is the second-largest supplier of tokenized public shares, with about 23% market share, based mostly on RWA.xyz information.
The platform mentioned xStocks has produced greater than $5 billion in cumulative buying and selling quantity on its platform. Backed has powered xStocks for the reason that providing launched. The acquisition turns that provider relationship into possession.
The platform has expanded distribution for xStocks over the previous 12 months. It rolled the service out in the USA earlier this 12 months. It then added entry in Europe and prolonged help to Tron, BNB, and Solana.
Backed’s expertise can be used past Kraken. Bybit relied on Backed so as to add tokenized equities in Nvidia, Technique, and different companies to Mantle’s on-chain ecosystem. That attain has made Backed a standard backend for tokenized inventory merchandise.
The deal lands as tokenization shifts from pilot packages to wider use. BlackRock executives Larry Fink and Rob Goldstein lately mentioned tokenization might reshape monetary markets. They in contrast its potential impression to the early web’s impact on data.
Normal Chartered has projected tokenized real-world belongings might attain $2 trillion by 2028. The financial institution mentioned most exercise could think about Ethereum. Demand for tokenized yield merchandise and collateral that can be utilized on-chain has additionally pushed progress by means of 2025, in accordance with analysts at Oracle protocol RedStone.
Platform Hyperlinks Tokenization Management to IPO Run-Up
Kraken’s buy offers it nearer management over issuance and upkeep for tokenized equities. It additionally creates a clearer path to hyperlink these belongings with spot markets and collateral frameworks on the trade. Backed, based in 2021, will proceed supporting its current tokens in the course of the transition.
Kraken has been constructing round tokenization because it scales towards public markets. The corporate closed a funding spherical this 12 months that valued it at about $20 billion. It has additionally confidential draft S-1 for U.S. IPO with SEC, with a goal of 2026.
The trade has paired product enlargement with acquisitions. It purchased the Small Alternate to develop U.S. derivatives buying and selling. It additionally introduced a $1.5 billion deal to accumulate NinjaTrader, described as the largest crypto TradFi acquisition thus far.
