Kraken's parent company, Payward, announced plans to soon open tokenized subscriptions for its US-listed IPO to eligible investors through Kraken and other xStocks Alliance platforms. If successfully allocated an underwriting allocation, investors will be able to participate at the IPO price, rather than waiting to buy shares on the open market after listing.
This arrangement targets primary market placements that have long been dominated by institutions, private banks, and high-net-worth clients. With companies like SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI being seen as potential IPO candidates, demand for these hot IPOs is heating up.
The first batch of products is expected to be launched within a few weeks.
Payward stated that the first tokenized IPO products are expected to launch in the coming weeks through Kraken and other alliance members. The company also stated that the IPO will only proceed to the offering stage if it secures underwriting quotas for investors.
According to the company, investors will first submit non-binding subscription intentions before the IPO. The platform will then aggregate the demands from participating exchanges and coordinate with the underwriting syndicate to allocate quotas. After the company is officially listed, the relevant shares will be tokenized and distributed to investors.
Tokens correspond to custodied shares
Payward's model involves tokenizing listed stocks on a one-to-one basis. The underlying stocks are held by a regulated custodian, while the on-chain tokens represent the corresponding equity and are distributed to investors through participating platforms.
The company emphasizes that this service does not cover all new shares, but is based on the actual allocation received. This means that the product scope will depend on underwriting resources and the progress of cooperation, rather than being solely determined by the platform.
RWA continues to extend its reach into stocks.
In recent years, tokenization has expanded from crypto assets to US Treasury funds, private lending, and money market products, with stocks becoming a new area of expansion. Proponents believe that this structure helps lower barriers to cross-regional investment and brokerage entry, allowing more users to access assets that were previously difficult to participate in.
For Kraken, this move also demonstrates that crypto platforms are attempting to integrate on-chain infrastructure into the distribution process of traditional capital markets, moving beyond just spot and derivatives trading. If the product is successfully launched, the application scenarios for tokenized stocks will further extend from secondary market trading to primary market subscriptions.
Additional information:xStocks Alliance is the partnership network mentioned by Payward. CoinDesk quoted a company spokesperson as saying that the IPO will only be open to investors once the platform has secured an underwriting allocation.
