Nasdaq's Tokenized Equities vs. Kraken's ₱1.49 trillion ($25 billion) xStocks
Nasdaq announced an issuer-sponsored tokenized equities program on March 9 with full shareholder rights, proxy actions, and legal equivalence to traditional shares. The move contrasts sharply with Kraken's xStocks, which provide only synthetic exposure to 85,000 unique holders without voting rights, dividends, or legal claims.
Key Takeaway
Nasdaq's issuer-sponsored model offers real shareholder rights—Kraken's $25 billion xStocks market doesn't.
Nasdaq announced an issuer-sponsored tokenized equities program on March 9 with full shareholder rights, proxy actions, and legal equivalence to traditional shares. The Depository Trust Company received an SEC no-action letter in December 2025 enabling it to support on-chain minting and burning of tokenized equities by mid-2026. Nasdaq filed its rule proposal in 2025 and targets operational readiness by the first half of 2027.
Kraken's xStocks reached ₱1.49 trillion ($25 billion) in total transaction volume across 85,000 unique holders, but provide synthetic exposure with no voting rights, dividends, or legal claims to underlying shares, restricted to non-U.S. retail clients. Payward, Kraken's parent company, framed the gateway in terms of capital mobility and collateral efficiency, with ₱237.61 billion ($4 billion) of xStocks settled on-chain across Solana, Ethereum, and TON.
Regulators signaled support for the issuer-sponsored approach. The SEC's staff issued a statement on January 30 explicitly separating issuer-sponsored tokenized securities from third-party models like Kraken's xStocks. The Federal Reserve, FDIC, and OCC said on March 5 that capital rules are technology-neutral for eligible tokenized securities. NYSE announced in January that it's developing a separate tokenized-securities platform with around-the-clock trading and instant settlement, aiming to eliminate the traditional one-day trade delay.
The stakes are massive for Nasdaq's roughly 4,000 listings, representing approximately ₱831.64 trillion ($14 trillion) in equity value. A hypothetical 0.1% token-rail adoption rate would shift ₱831.64 billion ($14 billion) of equity value on-chain, while 1% adoption implies $140 billion. McKinsey's 2024 model projected $2 trillion in tokenized financial assets by 2030, excluding cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.
Nasdaq's proposal ensures tokenized and traditional securities remain fully fungible, sharing the same CUSIP number and material rights, with all trades clearing and settling through DTCC. XRP Ledger overtook Solana in real-world asset tokenization through disciplined control structures by March 2026.
This article was written based on reporting from CryptoSlate.
