In brief
- Binance will let non-U.S. users trade more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs with zero commission and fractional buys from $5, according to co-CEO Richard Teng.
- The exchange previewed “bStocks,” a coming feature letting users mint synthetic, tokenized versions of their shares on the BNB blockchain.
- Experts say the move pushes a crypto-Wall Street convergence, but warn that fragmented regulation and layered custody could constrain adoption.
Crypto exchange Binance opened access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs on Monday and laid out plans to let users convert those shares into blockchain tokens.
The company is offering zero-commission trades to non-U.S. customers and fractional purchases starting at $5 as part of an ambition to build a “multi-asset financial super app,” co-CEO Richard Teng told Fortune.
Share purchases will be facilitated through broker-dealer Nest Trading, New York-based Alpaca Securities will provide custody, dividend distribution, and corporate action services, with purchases supported via USDC, USDT, BNB, and other digital assets.
“Large crypto exchanges such as Binance are entering the stock market because they no longer want to be dependent on market cycles,” Ivan Patriki, co-founder of analytics platform Quantmap, told Decrypt.
Binance wants to take away daily user balance “from brokers and ensure that users don’t leave the app for Tesla, the S&P 500, stablecoins, or DeFi,” Patriki added.
Alongside the launch, Binance described “bStocks,” a coming feature that will let users tokenize the equities they buy by minting synthetic versions on its BNB blockchain.
Binance said its version, due in the coming weeks, will let customers start the tokenization process themselves, according to the report.
“Tokenized stocks could become a major driver of both RWA adoption and crypto more broadly,” Misha Putiatin, co-founder of collateral markets platform Symbiotic, told Decrypt.
The real opportunity lies in making equities fully composable with DeFi, allowing tokenized stocks to support lending, collateral, and other yield-generating financial products, he said.
Rather than competing with crypto for capital, tokenized equities could become part of the same financial stack, providing a predictable yield base for broader on-chain markets, Putiatin added.
Vytautas Mackonis, COO of Swiss-based RWA protocol ALCUM, told Decrypt that Binance’s stock offering is “more structurally complex than it appears,” with users relying on Binance as the interface, Nest Trading as the broker-dealer, and Alpaca Securities as the custodian, creating operational risks if regulatory actions or technical issues disrupt access to positions.
“Tokenized stocks are a real and durable trend,” he noted, saying their growth as a broad RWA adoption driver remains constrained by “fragmented regulations, limited secondary-market liquidity, and the lack of a consistent legal framework defining investor rights.”
Just last week, the SEC delayed a planned “innovation exemption” for tokenized assets, citing concerns over third-party tokens, digital representations of shares issued without the underlying company’s approval, that could complicate dividends and shareholder votes.
Patriki cautioned the new model raises questions, such as “who guarantees redeemability, what happens at night when the Nasdaq is closed, how the token price is synchronized with the underlying stock, and what regulators will say when retailers start using tokenized Nvidia as collateral in DeFi.”
The shift, he said, won’t kill brokers but will “usher in a new hybrid market where brokers, exchanges, banks, and blockchain platforms compete for the same user balance.”
In February, Binance expanded its tokenization efforts by offering tokenized assets through Ondo Finance on its Binance Alpha platform, while noting that the products “do not grant all shareholder rights, such as voting rights.”
Its competitors strengthened their own tokenization strategies with Coinbase integrating Yahoo Finance tickers directly into its platform, allowing users to trade either the underlying digital asset or a tokenized version of a stock as part of its “Everything Exchange” strategy.
Meanwhile, Kraken launched regulated tokenized equity perpetual futures on the xStocks framework for eligible non-U.S. users, while Nasdaq partnered with Kraken parent Payward to develop tokenized equities built on the same xStocks infrastructure, with a planned 2027 launch.
Daily trading volume across tokenized stocks and ETFs has climbed to $1.68 billion, up 39% over the past month, with monthly transfer volume hitting $3.63 billion, up 36%, and holders rising 31% to 292,590, according to rwa.xyz data.
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