Top 100 London Stocks Are Coming to Crypto, But There’s a Catch

Payward will launch tokenized London stocks within weeks, covering the city’s 100 largest listed companies. Investors in more than 110 countries qualify, but UK residents do not.

The Kraken parent is working with the London Stock Exchange on the rollout. What goes live is a wrapper rather than a share, and the exchange’s own plans sit years out.

Tokenized London Stocks Arrive Without Shareholder Rights

Each xStock tracks one underlying share. The legal issuer is Backed Assets (JE) Limited, a Jersey company. Payward agreed to buy the business behind it in December.

Holders get price exposure, round-the-clock transfers, and use inside wallets or on-chain apps. However, they do not get a place on the share register.

Voting rights and delivery of the real stock stay with the traditional holder. The fine print of tokenized stocks rarely makes that obvious.

The other catch is scale. Those 100 companies are the FTSE 100, an index that LSEG’s own arm, FTSE Russell, values at $3.47 trillion. That was the end-of-July reading. What goes on-chain is a fraction of a fraction of it.

Every tokenized stock on every chain was worth roughly $2.5 billion on Tuesday, per RWA.xyz data. xStocks holds about $607 million of that, behind rival issuer Ondo Finance.

Payward cites $40 billion in cumulative xStocks volume. That number measures trading churn, not how much stock sits onchain.

The London Stock Exchange Part Is Still Years Away

LSEG announced LSE 24 in July as a 24/5 venue, not a continuous one. Testing starts by late 2026. Exchange-traded products to be listed in the first half of 2027, subject to approval.

Equities come after that. Tokenized London names have no confirmed date on the exchange itself.

“Tokenization has the potential to change how investors access, and how issuers use, financial markets, but it must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets,” read an excerpt in the announcement, citing Julia Hoggett, chief executive of LSE plc, said.

Both firms will also study native LSE-issued tokens carrying full shareholder rights. Payward struck the same kind of deal with Nasdaq in March, and that design also targets 2027.

So the pattern is set. Blue chips go onchain as Jersey paper first, and the real shares wait, sold everywhere except London.