PANews reported on December 2nd that, according to Bloomberg, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced its acquisition of tokenized asset platform Backed Finance. In an interview, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that Kraken already offers stocks and ETFs issued by Backed, and plans to more tightly integrate these products into its platform after the acquisition. Sethi said, "While everyone is talking about tokenized stocks, we're already putting it into practice." "We focus on long-term investing, not hype." Kraken did not disclose the terms of the transaction.

According to data from rwa.xyz, Backed Finance is currently the second-largest platform in the tokenized listed stock space, with a market share of approximately 23%. Backed's xStocks product offers investment exposure to over 60 tokenized stocks and ETFs, all of which are backed one-to-one by underlying assets.