Kraken has launched US-listed equity trading for customers in the European Economic Area through its regulated European entity, bundling over 7,000 conventional stocks with more than 700 tokenized versions of those same equities.
The announcement on August 18 marks the exchange's first foray into offering traditional equities alongside crypto-native instruments to its European user base. Eligible EEA customers can now trade both live US stocks and tokenized xStocks through Kraken's Payward Europe Digital Solutions entity, which holds a MiFID II investment firm license.
Kraken operates its European business under a regulated framework that permits investment services across the EEA. The MiFID II authorization allows the firm to offer portfolio management and investment advice to retail and professional customers in member states. The addition of US equities expands Kraken's product suite beyond cryptocurrency and derivatives into traditional asset classes without requiring customers to move funds to a separate broker.
The tokenized stock feature mirrors offerings already available through other crypto platforms. xStocks track the price of their underlying equities one-to-one, allowing customers to hold fractional shares and settle trades on-chain. Kraken said the feature lets users manage stocks and digital assets in a single account.
The move comes as crypto exchanges continue broadening their offerings to capture wallet share from traditional finance. Kraken filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States earlier this year and has expanded its staking and derivatives products. Offering equities to EEA users reduces friction for customers who might otherwise need multiple accounts to access both asset classes.
Regulatory permission to offer equities in the EEA does not extend automatically to other markets. US customers cannot access the stock trading feature, and other jurisdictions maintain their own licensing requirements. Kraken's European entity is separate from its US operations, which are licensed as a money transmitter in most states but do not offer equities or margin products.
The bundle of 7,000 conventional stocks alongside tokenized versions gives EEA customers optionality on settlement and custody. No other major exchange has published a comparable universe of both live equities and tokenized equivalents in a single account for European users. Kraken's move tests whether customers will consolidate trading activity if given the option to hold stocks and crypto in parallel within the same platform.
