What Are xStocks? Tokenized Stocks on Solana, Explained

xStocks are tokenized US stocks issued by Backed Finance: each one is an SPL token on Solana, backed 1:1 by a real share held in custody, and named with an “x” suffix — TSLAX is Tesla, NVDAX is Nvidia, AAPLX is Apple, COINX is Coinbase, SPYX is the S&P 500 ETF. When you buy one you own the token and the price exposure it carries — not the share, not a vote, not a seat on any register. That distinction decides everything else on this page.

xStocks are a product, not a platform — a point most write-ups blur. Backed issues the tokens; exchanges such as Kraken and Bybit list them; Solana DEXs trade them permissionlessly. So “xStocks” is the answer to what you are buying, and the venue question — where — comes after.

Who stands behind an xStock

The issuer is Backed Assets (JE) Ltd, part of Backed Finance — a Swiss-based, MiFID II-aligned issuer. For every token in circulation, a real share is bought and held in custody by Alpaca Securities LLC, a FINRA-regulated broker-dealer and SIPC member, with Lloyd's of London coverage up to $175M in aggregate across xStocks, inside a bankruptcy-remote structure. That is genuinely more protection than an unbacked token — and it is still important to read it precisely: bankruptcy-remote means the backing shares are separated from the issuer's own balance sheet, not that your token becomes a brokerage account. You do not get the investor-compensation protections a directly-held share would carry.

What you get — and what you don't

What buying an xStock gives you:

• Price exposure to the underlying share, backed 1:1
• Dividends reflected via rebasing (see below)
• A permissionless Solana token — self-custody and DeFi use are possible
• Around-the-clock trading on-chain, 24/7 for Kraken's top names

What it does not give you:

• Legal ownership of the share — you are not on the register
• Voting rights or any direct claim on the company
• Cash dividends paid to you as a shareholder
• A retail path to redeem the token for the real share — redemption is for qualified investors dealing with Backed directly, for a fee; retail exits by selling the token

How xStocks dividends work: rebasing, not cash

The mechanic most write-ups miss entirely: when an underlying company pays a dividend, no cash lands in your account. Instead, Backed reinvests the net dividend — what remains after the 30% US withholding tax — and updates a multiplier, so your token balance increases automatically. The increase is calculated from the net dividend divided by the prior day's closing price. Stock splits run through the same multiplier, adjusting balances pro rata.

The practical consequence is per-ticker and worth being blunt about: rebasing income only exists if the underlying actually pays. Nvidia and Apple pay dividends and SPY distributes, so NVDAX, AAPLX and SPYX rebase; Tesla and Coinbase pay nothing, so TSLAX and COINX holders should expect zero rebasing income today — their return is price movement alone.

Where xStocks trade

Three routes, in order of how most people use them. Kraken is the volume leader: its top-10 xStocks trade 24/7, with a spread of roughly 1% that drops to 0% when you pay with USD or USDG — details in our Kraken xStocks hub. Bybit also lists xStocks where eligible, alongside its crypto markets. And because xStocks are permissionless SPL tokens, you can withdraw them to a Solana wallet such as Phantom or Solflare and trade on-chain via DEXs like Raydium or the Jupiter aggregator, 24/7. Line-ups differ by venue and change over time — check the platform for what is listed today.

What a brokerage share cannot do: the DeFi side

Because an xStock is an ordinary SPL token, it can go places a brokerage share cannot. You can post it as collateral on lending markets — Kamino on Solana, or Morpho on Ethereum via a bridged form — to borrow stablecoins against your stock exposure without selling. You can supply it to liquidity pools on Raydium or Orca and earn trading fees. Be honest with yourself about the price of that flexibility: every DeFi layer adds smart-contract risk, liquidation risk and impermanent-loss risk on top of the stock's own volatility. The flexibility is real; so is the extra risk.

xStocks vs bStocks vs Ondo — the issuer map

Three issuers dominate tokenized stocks, and they are easy to confuse. The one-line map: xStocks are Backed Finance's tokens on Solana, trading on Kraken and Bybit; bStocks are Binance's own ADGM-regulated certificates inside Binance; Ondo Global Markets is an issuer platform with the widest catalogue. None of them makes you a shareholder.

The full breakdowns live in what are bStocks? and our Ondo Global Markets hub.

Who can buy xStocks

The blunt version first: not Americans. xStocks are not available to US persons, and Canada, the UK, Australia and the EEA are also excluded. They are offered to eligible non-US clients in more than 100 countries across the rest of the world. Eligibility is enforced at the venue level and rules change, so confirm your country's status on the platform — not on third-party pages, including this one. The wider legal picture is in are tokenized stocks legal?

Risks to understand before buying

• Issuer and custodian risk.Your claim runs through Backed's structure and Alpaca's custody — two counterparties that a directly-held share does not have.
• Off-hours divergence. When US markets are closed, the token trades on while the reference price stands still — the two can drift apart, and you pay that gap when you trade at the wrong moment.
• A young, thinner market. Spreads and depth are not those of the NYSE; size positions accordingly.
• Smart-contract risk whenever you take the token on-chain — wallets, bridges, DEXs and lending markets are all attack surfaces.
• A token is not a registered share. Rebasing and 1:1 backing do not change the legal bottom line.

This is general information, not investment advice. Product terms, listings and eligibility change — verify current conditions on the platform and for your jurisdiction before acting.