Kraken switched on direct trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks for eligible customers across every European Economic Area member state on Tuesday, closing a rollout that had been running quietly in Germany, the Netherlands and France. The offer arrives commission-free and sits in the same account as 600 crypto assets and over 700 tokenized equities, which makes Kraken the only crypto-native venue in Europe selling both the real share and its tokenized twin under one regulated roof. The legal plumbing runs through Payward Europe Digital Solutions in Cyprus, an investment firm authorized under MiFID II, so this is a licensed brokerage product rather than a crypto workaround. The tokenized side already carries a track record, with xStocks clearing more than $38 billion in transaction volume since they launched in June 2025. What follows walks through what actually shipped, the regulatory mechanics that let it ship, the case for Kraken taking share from incumbent brokers, and the reasons commission-free rarely means free.
The Read
- Kraken opened 7,000+ US stocks to all EEA countries on August 18, commission-free, through its MiFID II-licensed Cyprus entity.
- Customers can now hold conventional shares, 700+ xStocks and 600+ crypto assets in one account, a combination no other crypto-native platform offers in Europe.
- Tokenized equities have gone from 5% to 15% of the real-world asset market this year, on a total market cap near $2.8B.
Seven Thousand US Tickers Land Next to 700 xStocks
The product went live for eligible customers in every EEA member state, reachable through Kraken Pro and the mobile app. Trading carries no commission, though spreads, foreign exchange costs and other fees still apply. The company laid out the scope in its own announcement of US-listed stock trading for EEA customers.
The number that matters is not the 7,000 tickers. It is the combination. A European customer can hold conventional shares, a tokenized version of the same company and bitcoin in one account, which is the part no incumbent replicates. Kraken claims to be the only crypto-native platform offering both formats to EEA clients inside a single regulated account.
The tokenized leg is not a pilot. xStocks have processed more than $38B in transaction volume since June 2025, which is real order flow rather than a demo. Traders who want US equity exposure outside cash-market hours already had a route here, and now the cash market sits beside it.
Access is not automatic. Existing EEA customers have to accept additional terms before the stock tab appears, so the rollout curve depends on how many of them bother. That gap between eligibility and activation is where the revenue forecast either lands or disappoints. Readers who want to look at the interface can open an account on the platform where the equities tab now sits alongside the crypto book.
A Cyprus MiFID II Licence Is Doing the Heavy Lifting
The entity behind the offer is Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, a Cyprus investment firm authorized under the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II. That licence is what converts a crypto exchange into a securities broker across 30 markets without 30 separate approvals.
Passporting is the whole trick. One MiFID II authorization in one member state reaches every other, which is why the quiet launches in Germany, the Netherlands and France could scale to the full bloc in a single step. Incumbent brokers built the same structure years ago, so Kraken is not inventing a loophole, it is finally using the standard one.
Holding both formats under one licence also settles an old ambiguity. A tokenized share and a real share answer to different rule sets, and platforms have generally kept them apart to avoid the question. Kraken has put them in the same account, which is a regulatory position as much as a product decision.
The wider market has been moving this way. Tokenized equities now make up 15% of the real-world asset market, up from 5% at the start of the year, on a total capitalization around $2.8B. Traditional finance has been testing the same rails, with New York Life among the names that put a tokenized bond fund into production this summer.
Commission-Free Is the Wedge Aimed at Incumbent Brokers
The bull case starts with pricing. Zero commission on US equities undercuts a large part of the European retail brokerage market on the headline number, and headline numbers move retail accounts. A crypto customer who already trusts the platform with their coins faces almost no switching cost to add equities.
The revenue base gives management room to fund that. Payward reported Q2 adjusted revenue of $508M, up 17% year on year, with $23M in adjusted EBITDA. A company at that scale can run equities near breakeven for several quarters if the goal is deposits and account share rather than immediate spread income.
Here is why the single-account angle carries more weight than the fee. European retail investors currently split crypto and equities across two providers, which fragments their cash balances. Consolidation onto one venue lifts assets per customer, and assets per customer is the metric that decides whether this is a durable business or a promotional quarter. Comparison shoppers weighing execution and fee structures can see how the established players stack up in our look at Interactive Brokers against Fidelity for a serious investor.
The tokenized book is the genuine differentiator, not the cash equities. Nobody else licensed in Europe can offer a customer the choice between a settled share and a token tracking it. If round-the-clock equity exposure becomes a mainstream retail demand rather than a niche, the platform holding both formats collects that flow by default.
Spreads and FX Are Where the Real Cost Hides
The bear case sits inside the same sentence as the bull case. Commission-free explicitly leaves spreads, FX costs and other fees in place, and a European buying US stocks pays currency conversion on both legs. The all-in cost can land above a flat-fee broker while the marketing headline still says free.
Activation friction is the second risk. Customers must accept extra terms before trading, and every additional consent screen drops conversion. A launch spanning 30 countries can still deliver thin volumes if the funnel leaks, which would leave a large addressable base and a small active one.
Then there is the exposure that comes with the model. Kraken’s equity business is bolted onto a crypto franchise, so an extended crypto drawdown pulls funding and attention away from it at the worst moment. Coinbase has already shown how quickly that correlation bites, with the stock having traded well below its 52-week high through the summer.
The asymmetry to price is regulatory rather than commercial. Putting tokenized and conventional shares in one MiFID II account invites supervisory attention that neither format attracted separately, and a European regulator that decides the pairing needs its own treatment can force an unbundling. The product’s biggest advantage and its biggest single point of failure are the same design choice.
More to come.
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