GTN Taps Ex-Gemini and Kraken Exec Mark Jennings for Digital Assets Push

GTN appointed Mark Jennings as global head of digital assets on Nov. 10, charging the former Gemini and Kraken executive with building out the firm's strategy for tokenized securities across its market-access network.

The hire lands at a busy moment. On Nov. 11, xStocks deployed its first wave of more than 200 tokenized equities tied to companies listed in the United Kingdom and the European Union. GTN handles execution and custody for the underlying shares. Each token is backed one-for-one by an actual share, so the digital wrapper maps directly to real stock held in custody.

xStocks is a tokenized-equities platform developed by Payward, the parent company of Kraken. GTN and Payward announced their partnership in July, with GTN providing the infrastructure for xStocks' expansion. Beyond execution and custody, the deal covers ledgering and record-keeping plumbing. GTN's network connects clients to more than 90 markets through a single integration.

Jennings arrives with a CV built almost entirely in crypto-native firms. He was Gemini's head of Europe as of January 2025. Before that, he served as CEO of Crypto Facilities, a Kraken subsidiary, and as chief operating officer of Kraken's European operations.

What does the appointment signal?

It signals that institutional market infrastructure firms now treat tokenized securities as a product line, not a science project. Jennings said his earlier roles convinced him the demand is real and two-sided.

"At Gemini and Kraken, I saw first-hand users' demand for traditional assets alongside crypto," Jennings said.

That observation cuts to the core of the tokenization thesis. Crypto exchange users kept asking for exposure to conventional equities within the same rails. Now the flow is reversing: traditional market infrastructure is being asked to bring those equities on-chain.

GTN co-founder and group CEO Manjula Jayasinghe framed the trend in operational terms. She said demand for tokenized securities is growing, describing them as a way for investors to trade traditional assets on-chain around the clock with real-time settlement.

The pitch is settlement mechanics, not speculation. Traditional equity settlement runs on fixed market hours and multi-day clearing cycles. Tokenized representations promise 24/7 trading and near-instant finality, provided the custody and execution chain beneath them holds up. That is exactly the layer GTN now occupies for xStocks.

Who can actually access these tokens?

Availability is jurisdiction-dependent, and the restrictions matter more than the technology. The xStocks tokens are not available to U.S. persons. They also remain unavailable to investors in the U.K., despite the underlying shares being U.K.-listed — a wrinkle that underscores how licensing, not chain design, sets the pace of distribution. GTN said distribution of xStocks to its institutional clients depends on securing the required licenses in each market.

That creates a concrete roadmap item. GTN's expansion of xStocks distribution will track license approvals market by market, and Jennings' mandate — supporting tokenized securities through a network spanning more than 90 markets — gives the firm a long queue of jurisdictions to work through.

For tokenized securities generally, the GTN-xStocks pairing adds a second institutional-grade template after earlier efforts struggled with custody depth and market access. A single integration touching 90-plus markets, paired with one-for-one share backing, narrows the gap between on-chain tokens and the equities they represent.

The near-term marker to watch is the next deployment wave: whether xStocks' token count grows beyond the initial 200-plus equities, and which European licenses clear first, will set the tempo for institutional adoption through the rest of the year.