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Kraken just collapsed the wall between a crypto wallet and a US equity account for European investors. Eligible customers across the European Economic Area can now trade more than 7,000 US-listed stocks — Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and the rest — inside the same regulated interface where they already hold bitcoin and ether Kraken announcement.
The stocks are commission-free for eligible EEA customers and sit on the same Kraken Pro desktop, mobile, and Kraken app surfaces as the crypto they already trade Stocks on Kraken.
One account, two formats
Kraken now lets one account hold traditional US shares and their tokenized twins side by side, a combination no other crypto-native platform in Europe offers under a single authorization Stocks on Kraken.
Payward chief commercial officer Mark Greenberg said the launch “eliminates the artificial divide between traditional and tokenized formats of the same asset” Kraken announcement. “That’s what modern investing should look like: one asset class, multiple formats, fully integrated,” he added.
What tokenization actually changes
The tokenized side is where the real difference shows. Kraken’s xStocks are backed 1:1 by the underlying shares, can be moved to self-custody wallets, and keep trading when public markets are closed — something an ordinary brokerage account cannot do Tokenization guide.
Since their debut, xStocks have cleared more than $38 billion in total transaction volume, a sign of how much demand sits on the tokenized side of the same names listed in New York Kraken announcement.
The regulator in the room
Regulation is the quiet backbone. By routing equities through a single MiFID II entity, Payward Europe Digital Solutions, Kraken lets customers hold traditional shares, tokenized equivalents, or both without moving capital between providers or juggling two separate authorizations Stocks on Kraken.
Not everyone gets in. The offering is unavailable to US persons, and eligibility still depends on local restrictions Stocks on Kraken. Tokenized equities carry their own risk disclosures and are not registered with local securities regulators Stocks on Kraken.
Kraken is not the first to flirt with blending stocks and crypto, but it is the first crypto-native venue to do so under one MiFID II roof in Europe. The company says it plans to extend the integrated stocks offering to more markets in the coming months. For how tokenized equities work, see Kraken’s explainer on asset tokenization Tokenization guide, and for a related earlier move, its S&P 500 trading rollout for funded accounts zBrandco coverage.
