LSEG and Payward plan to put 100 UK stocks onchain

LSEG and Payward plan to make shares of the 100 largest LSE-listed companies available as xStocks, pending regulatory approval. The LSE plans to list xStocks on its new 24-hour venue over the coming weeks. The companies will also explore fully fungible equity tokens with the same rights as traditional shares. Payward owns crypto exchange Kraken. The xStocks will be one-to-one-backed versions of the underlying shares. The tokens can trade 24/7 on centralized exchanges. The tokens can also move through self-custody wallets and onchain applications. Traditional shares held in brokerage accounts settle during exchange hours. Traditional shares clear through intermediaries in a process that can take days. Tokenized shares can move instantly into self-custodied wallets or DeFi protocols. The tokenized shares track the price of the underlying shares.