How Kraken is Bringing Wall Street to Every App | Markets Outlook

Summary

Markets Outlook: How Kraken is Bringing Wall Street to Every App | CoinDesk

Episode Date: February 27, 2026
Guest: Mark Greenberg, VP of X Stocks and Global Head of Consumer, Kraken
Recorded at: Consensus Hong Kong

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Episode Overview

This Markets Outlook episode, live from Consensus Hong Kong, spotlights the growing intersection of crypto infrastructure and traditional financial markets. Mark Greenberg of Kraken discusses the rapid growth of Kraken’s tokenized equity product, X Stocks, and explains how this technology is democratizing access to equities—making it as simple as buying crypto. The conversation delves into emerging demand, real-world use cases, liquidity challenges, regulation, and the frictionless user experience of purchasing stocks through apps and messaging platforms.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Energy and Opportunities at Consensus Hong Kong

• [00:21] Mark Greenberg notes the palpable excitement at the event, emphasizing how being present in Hong Kong is critical to building relationships and expanding X Stocks into new markets, particularly Asia.

2. X Stocks — Tokenized Equities for All

• [00:35-01:16]
  • Mark explains that X Stocks is Kraken’s tokenized equities product, enabling fractionalized buying and 24/7 trading of stocks.
  • The product reached a $20 billion trading volume milestone that very morning.
  • The infrastructure is designed for broad integration and white-labeling: “It's the kind of infrastructure that we're building for an industry and we don't even have to be involved if you want to build it in.”
    — Mark Greenberg [00:55]

3. Sources of Demand and Partners

• [01:39-02:17]
  • X Stocks has over 100 partners, including competing exchanges—and is live in apps like Telegram and Bybit.
  • Demand is diverse: both institutions and retail (e.g., individuals wanting to buy $5 of Tesla or an S&P 500 index token).
  • “The idea is that it's not one use case for one type of user… Both of those things are going to be key parts of our demand going forward.”
    — Mark Greenberg [02:01]

4. Retail Trends in Asia and Use Cases

• [02:17-03:27]
  • The host points out that, in Asia, some retail users are shifting interest from crypto to tokenized US stocks.
  • Mark stresses the advantages over traditional equities: fractional shares, 24/7 access, self-custody, and seamless spending.
  • “All sorts of things that you used to be able to solely do with crypto...you can now do with equities as well.”
    — Mark Greenberg [03:14]

5. Liquidity, Tokenization, and Fragmentation

• [03:27-05:28]
  • The panel discusses concerns about liquidity fragmentation in tokenized assets.
  • Mark acknowledges challenges but sees value in building interoperable standards (X Stocks) and integrating with competitors.
  • “Part of what we're trying to build with xdocs is a standard, is infrastructure that can be used by anyone…trying to build something that can be ubiquitous.”
    — Mark Greenberg [04:37]
  • He notes, “You can get a great price on Tesla X right now in a number of different places. So I'm not quite as worried about the short term implications.”
    — Mark Greenberg [05:12]

6. Regulation: Incremental, Not Revolutionary Change

• [05:28-07:13]
  • The hosts ask about regulatory hurdles.
  • Mark highlights recent progress and ongoing dialogue with regulators in US, EU, Asia, Canada, and Australia.
  • Most regimes don’t require dramatic legal changes: “It's mostly around thinking about them a little bit differently. They're custody differently, they're managed differently, liquidity is handled differently… just a matter of working through the existing rules and making the small tweaks necessary to make it work.” — Mark Greenberg [06:37]

7. Education and Awareness as Key Challenges

• [07:13-07:37]
  • With regulations less of a barrier, Mark says mass adoption is hindered mainly by lack of awareness and education.
  • “We want it to be in every app in the world. And so it's just a lot of conversations helping people understand the space.”
    — Mark Greenberg [07:29]

8. Seamless User Experience

• [08:02-08:20]
  • On buying tokenized equities via platforms like Telegram:
    "Go on Telegram. Click button. Buy Tesla X. Buy Tesla X. It's really that."
    — Mark Greenberg [08:12]
  • The host laughs at the simplicity: "That sounds easy."
    — Host [08:18]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's the kind of infrastructure that we're building for an industry and we don't even have to be involved if you want to build it in.”
  — Mark Greenberg [00:55]
• “All sorts of things that you used to be able to solely do with crypto...you can now or stable coins you can now do with equities as well.”
  — Mark Greenberg [03:14]
• “Part of what we're trying to build with xdocs is a standard.”
  — Mark Greenberg [04:37]
• “You can get a great price on Tesla X right now in a number of different places.”
  — Mark Greenberg [05:12]
• “Most of [the regulation] don't require very much change to existing rules to be able to offer them.”
  — Mark Greenberg [06:27]
• “Go on Telegram. Click button. Buy Tesla X. Buy Tesla X. It's really that.”
  — Mark Greenberg [08:12]

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Important Timestamps

• [00:35]: Introduction to X Stocks and market expansion
• [01:39]: Sources of demand and ecosystem partners
• [02:39]: Asian retail interest and ease-of-use
• [04:17]: Addressing liquidity and fragmentation
• [06:10]: How regulation is catching up, but dramatic change isn't needed
• [07:13]: Education and distribution challenges
• [08:12]: Walkthrough of frictionless user experience (Telegram integration)

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Conclusion

Mark Greenberg's interview highlights Kraken’s ambition to mainstream stock trading through tokenization. The focus is on creating accessible, user-friendly, and regulation-compliant infrastructure that allows anyone—from seasoned investors to first-time retail participants—to invest in equities as seamlessly as they would in crypto. The most substantial hurdles are no longer regulatory, but educational: getting users and app developers to recognize just how easy and valuable tokenized equities can be.

Transcript

[Host]

If you're just joining us now, we're continuing our live coverage from Consensus Hong Kong. Joining us at the desk is Crackins, VP of X Stocks and global head of Consumer, Mark Greenberg. Hey, Mark.

[Mark Greenberg]

Hey. Thanks so much for having me.

[Host]

Thanks for being here. How's your consensus going?

[Mark Greenberg]

Oh, man, there's so much energy on the floor here. It's been really, really exciting so far.

[Host]

Take us inside some of the conversations you've been having. You're based in Canada. You were telling us just before we started this interview, why is it important you to be here in Hong Kong? And what kind of conversations are you having about the region?

[Mark Greenberg]

Yeah, so I'm really focused on our X Stocks product, which is tokenized equities. And we're just trying to find more ways to sell what is an amazing product out to more to get it into more hands. And so we just hit this morning $20 billion of volume. Pretty exciting start for us. We're talking about adding potentially Hong Kong stocks and other stocks into the mix sometime soon. And. And maybe the best story of the day is I ran into somebody I hadn't seen in a while. He was like, wait, you're working on xdocs? It's already in my app. And he didn't even know we were working on it. And so that's the coolest part about xdocs. It's the kind of infrastructure that we're building for an industry and we don't even have to be involved if you want to build it in.

[Host]

Those are the types of interactions you have at ConsenSys.

[Mark Greenberg]

Exactly right.

[Crackins]

That's why you got to be here on the floor in person.

[Mark Greenberg]

Absolutely.

[Crackins]

So I have a question. I have a bunch of questions about this. The talk of the town has been tokenization, and I think everyone has kind of a different flavor of that. But in the context of X Stocks and the thesis of the business, where is the demand coming from and where do you want the demand to come from? And are they the same?

[Mark Greenberg]

Yeah. To be honest, we're hoping the demand will come from many different places. So we're lucky to have more than 100 Xdocs partners right now, including many of Kraken's competitors. The idea is to be able to buy X Stocks in. You can already buy them in Telegram, you can already buy them on Bybit. You can buy them in lots of different places. Each of those use cases is going to be different. And that's same with Bitcoin, same with crypto. Right. The idea is that it's not one use case for one type of user. We see institutional demand. We see lots of like I want to buy $5 of Tesla or want to buy $5 of the S&P 500. Both of those things are going to be key parts of our demand going forward.

[Host]

I want to hear how you're thinking about this. I've been hearing folks talk about retail. Retail's largely been on the sidelines during this last cycle and now we're hearing about retail in different parts in the Asia region. Kind of stepping away from crypto and looking at tokenized US equities instead. Curious to hear your thoughts on that and yeah, just curious to hear how you're thinking about that.

[Mark Greenberg]

Yeah, I think, look, everybody's going to have a different asset class that they're excited about and all are important. I think if you're making a great portfolio, you're probably going to have some equities in it. You're probably going to have some crypto in it. That's my 2 cents on the subject. At the same time, why is crypto trading so much easier for folks in equities trading? And that's something that we've been really focused on trying to be. You can't trade equities 24. 7 without X stocks. You can't use them in a self custodial wallet. You can't buy five or ten dollars easily. You can't use it as money with a card. We have that on the Krak app now here at Kraken. All sorts of things that you used to be able to solely do with crypto you can now or stable coins you can now do with equities as well. And I think that just means that certain types of use cases which were crypto only are now also tokenized equities based on.

[Crackins]

So if, if you, you know, went in the past and had a conversation with David Laval and it Talked about tokenization 12 months ago, 18 months ago, you might get this like, I don't know, is tokenization like, you know, a solution looking for a problem? I absolutely no longer believe that at all. There's an absolute real world cases. Stablecoins are a perfect example of, you know, tokenization actually working. The thing that I still struggle with, and this is a little bit of like maybe the market microstructure geek in me is that you have fragmentation and fragmentation leads to fragmentation liquidity and if you have fragmentation of liquidity, maybe the execution quality isn't the same that it would be if you were accessing kind of like the traditional kind of natural market. How do you guys think about that stuff? Is it a real concern, are you saying, Dave, it's overblown?

[Mark Greenberg]

Liquidity is definitely a challenge when you come to tokenized real world assets. I think that's why stablecoins are obviously the best and first use case. Money is the most ubiquitous, the most asset out there. Frankly, equities are probably the second. As you start to go to other types of asset classes, it gets even harder and that's why we're really focused on getting equities right first. I hear you on the fact that there are competing options out there at the moment. Part of what we're trying to build with xdocs is a standard, is infrastructure that can be used by anyone. And so working very hard to bring as many of our Kraken competitors into the ecosystem, sharing the value with the ecosystem and trying to build something that can be ubiquitous and can be used across at the same time. I think we've learned a lot on how to make liquidity work even in more fragmented markets. So I'm not quite. You can get a great price on Tesla X right now in a number of different places. So I'm not quite as worried about the, the short term implications. But I do hope over time that we'll gravitate towards great products like xdocs that are permissionless and available, highly regulated and, and work not just for Kraken, but hopefully work for all of our competitors across the ecosystem.

[Crackins]

I mean the market theory would tell you that, you know, any sort of arbitrage opportunity is going to be meted out. So it's just a matter of time. It's not a concern of mine. I was just curious your perspective. You're living it every day. I think, Jen, it would be a little strange if we had Mark on and talking about tokenization and X stocks and not really bring up the reality of some of the regulatory infrastructure and some of the regulatory, how shall I say, a little bit of uncertainty right now, by the way, in the US market we've made massive strides. We don't have everything yet. So I guess my question to you is what are you looking for that can act as that catapult of growth coming out of either regulation and or, you know, legislation in the US market.

[Mark Greenberg]

So tokenized equities are really digital asset securities anyways. And so in a lot of ways there are already prospectus in Europe. They already have a pretty robust regulatory regime in the European market. We look forward. I think one of the Things that's been most exciting to me is since we've launched, we've had very robust conversations with regulators around the world about how to bring these digital assets to securities into their individual schemes. In the us, in the uk, here in Hong Kong, in Canada, in Australia, all of those conversations are progressing well. Most of them don't require very much change to existing rules to be able to offer them. It's mostly around thinking about them a little bit differently. They're custody differently, they're managed differently, liquidity is handled differently. And so mostly at this point, we're just working through the details with regulators. I don't think there's a whole wholesale change necessary for most regimes. It's more just a matter of working through the existing rules and making the small tweaks necessary to make it work.

[Host]

You started the conversation by saying you're here trying to get X Dox in as many hands as possible. Talk to us about the challenges that exist. It doesn't sound like the challenges are in the regulatory side. Is it more in the education and awareness side of things? Why can't you get X Docs in as many hands as fast as you would like to?

[Mark Greenberg]

Right now? We want it to be in every app in the world. And so it's just a lot of conversations helping people understand the space.

[Crackins]

The reality is aim high, Mark. Aim high.

[Mark Greenberg]

Right, exactly. Look. So you can already buy them in apps like Telegram, you can already buy them in our competitors. I think the more we educate folks, it's very easy to put into an app. You don't have to go through all the same behind the scenes brokerage details of working through kyc. Very easy to get into apps. So it's more just a matter of making sure we talk about the brand and get it in front of as many people as we can.

[Host]

Before I let you go, you talk about how easy it is about buying it in Telegram. For people who are listening at home, what does that user experience look like? Very quickly, talk us through how, how easy it is.

[Mark Greenberg]

Yeah, go on Telegram. Click button. Buy Tesla X. Buy Tesla X. It's really that.

[Host]

That sounds easy. It sounds easy.

[Mark Greenberg]

A lot easier than trying to buy Tesla if you're, if you're, if you're using a regular brokerage. So.

[Host]

All right, Dave and I will have to try it out and we'll report back on how easy it is. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. It was a pleasure having you at the desk.

[Mark Greenberg]

Thanks so much for having me. It.