Payward's xStocks goes live on Hyperliquid

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has made its xStocks tokenized-equities framework available on Hyperliquid’s HyperCore, the high-performance execution engine built on the Hyperliquid layer-1 blockchain. The rollout marks the first time popular tokenized US equities and ETFs are tradable as spot assets on HyperCore’s onchain order books, offering round-the-clock access on one of the fastest-growing decentralized trading venues.

The initial listing covers five instruments quoted against USDC: Nvidia (NVDAx), the S&P 500 index (SPYx), the Nasdaq-100 index (QQQx), SK Hynix (SKHYx) and Micron (MUx). Payward said additional xStocks deployments are scheduled for the coming weeks, including SpaceX, Sandisk and Tesla.

xStocks tokens are backed 1:1 by their underlying reference assets and held in custody by a regulated entity. The tokens are designed to move freely between centralized exchanges, self-custodied wallets and onchain applications. Since its launch in June 2025, xStocks has processed nearly $40 billion in transaction volume across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

Expanding distribution

Val Gui, general manager of xStocks, said Hyperliquid’s highly engaged onchain trader base and its strength in price discovery outside traditional market hours made it a natural fit for the expansion. The initial five markets reflect proven demand on Hyperliquid, where semiconductor-related perpetual contracts rank among the most heavily traded HIP-3 instruments. With spot xStocks now composable on HyperEVM, traders can hold the assets long-term and use them as collateral in lending and other DeFi protocols.

HyperCore joins Solana, several widely adopted EVM chains and TON as networks supporting xStocks. The broader xStocks catalogue now includes more than 700 tokenized assets, and Payward says the framework will soon expand to equities from the UK, Europe and Asia.