Binance bStocks Early 93% of Trades are Fractional Shares, Median Trade Amount Only $18.8
The Binance research team revealed in a closed-door event that in the early trading sample of Binance's tokenized U.S. stock product bStocks, 93% of trades were fractional share trades, with a median trade amount of only $18.8. Approximately 80% of early trading activity came from emerging markets.
The data during trading hours is even more striking. As of the research window ending in July, trades completed by bStocks during the U.S. traditional stock market's off-hours accounted for 62% of total trading volume. This means that most tokenized U.S. stock trading occurs during the nighttime, weekends, and holidays when the NYSE and NASDAQ are closed. The Binance research team believes that the low entry barrier and continuous trading are creating new demand for stock-related assets.
bStocks was launched on June 12, 2026, issued as a BEP-20 standard token on the BNB Chain. The issuer is Binance's affiliated entity BTech Holdings Limited, while Binance's brokerage entity Nest Trading Limited is responsible for purchasing the corresponding underlying stocks in the secondary market, which are held by a regulated custodian. Each token is pegged 1:1 to a share of the corresponding U.S. stock or ETF. The first batch includes stocks from Nvidia, Tesla, Micron Technology, SanDisk, and Circle, with a trading pair reserved for SpaceX to be activated upon its public listing. Users can convert between the underlying stocks and bStocks without fees, and the first batch of trading pairs has a limited-time waiver on order fees. The product is offered through Binance's licensed entity in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and is not available to U.S. users.
bStocks is built on Binance's U.S. stock business. On June 1, 2026, Binance launched direct trading of U.S. stocks through its ADGM licensed entity, covering over 7,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, with zero commission and a minimum investment of $5 for fractional shares, settled in stablecoins. Public data shows that this business surpassed $1 billion in asset scale within about 30 days of its launch, with a cumulative trading volume of approximately $3 billion and a daily net inflow of about $42 million. Binance expects the asset scale to reach $10 billion by the end of 2026. About 73% of new users come from emerging markets, and approximately 70% of users choose to hold rather than trade on the same day; technology stocks account for 71% of holdings, with semiconductor stocks alone accounting for 48%, and over 70% of funds flowing into AI-themed stocks.
Compared to similar products, the combined weekly trading volume of Backed Finance (the issuer of xStocks) and Ondo Finance's two tokenized stock platforms was only $35 million to $40 million during the same period, less than the net inflow of bStocks in a single day. The Binance research team's longer-term estimate is that by 2031, crypto platforms could bring an additional $2 trillion to $5 trillion in funding to the global stock market and about 300 million new investors, mainly from emerging economies.
In terms of market mechanisms, this is a capital migration driven by product launch. The buyers are mainly retail investors from emerging markets: they previously found it difficult to open U.S. brokerage accounts or were restricted by local foreign exchange controls and high minimum deposits. Now they can directly buy U.S. stock tokens with USDT at a few dollars. The sellers and liquidity providers are market makers and Binance's brokerage entities responsible for purchasing the underlying stocks and hedging exposure. Funds are flowing from stablecoin balances to U.S. tech stocks, especially leading AI and semiconductor stocks. Beneficiaries include Binance, BNB Chain, and the U.S. dollar stablecoins that are expanding in usage due to increased trading demand; those under pressure include local brokers in emerging markets, internet brokers like Robinhood promoting U.S. stocks overseas, and tokenized stock issuers like Ondo and Backed that are significantly lagging behind.
Supplementary data: bStocks' off-hours trading accounted for 62% of total trades, while the night and pre/post-market trading offered by U.S. traditional brokers typically accounts for only single digits to a few dozen percent of total trading volume, a difference of several times.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
This is not Binance's first foray into "stock tokens." In April 2021, it partnered with German broker CM-Equity to launch stock tokens for Tesla, Coinbase, and others, which quickly drew inquiries from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), leading to the cessation of this business in July of the same year. FTX also launched similar stock tokens in 2020, which collapsed along with the exchange in 2022. In November 2023, Binance reached a settlement of approximately $4.3 billion with the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies, with founder Changpeng Zhao pleading guilty, resigning, and serving four months in prison, later receiving a pardon from Trump in October 2025. In March of the same year, Abu Dhabi sovereign-backed investment firm MGX invested $2 billion in Binance. This time, Binance has placed its U.S. stock and bStocks business under an ADGM licensed entity, adopting a 1:1 underlying stock custody structure, learning from the regulatory lessons of 2021 while leveraging Abu Dhabi's regulatory and capital endorsement.
From a capital pathway perspective, Binance is transforming "stablecoin balances" into "U.S. stock funds." Global exchange accounts hold a large amount of USDT, which could only rotate between crypto assets in the past; now, through bStocks, these dollars can directly purchase U.S. stocks like Nvidia and Tesla, while Binance earns revenue from trading, conversion, and market-making. Choosing to issue on the BNB Chain is intended to integrate tokenized stocks into the on-chain ecosystem, serving as collateral and liquidity assets in DeFi, thereby increasing the usage of the BNB Chain. U.S. regulations are also loosening simultaneously: in September 2026, the SEC issued a five-year "innovation exemption," allowing tokenized U.S. stocks to be traded on compliant on-chain venues, opening up space for offshore tokenized stocks to connect with the U.S. domestic market in the future.
The closest historical analogies are two. The first is the elimination of fixed commission rates in the U.S. on May 1, 1975, which led Charles Schwab to attract ordinary retail investors into the stock market with discounted commissions. The second is Robinhood: launched zero-commission trading in 2015 and introduced fractional shares in 2019, lowering the minimum investment threshold to $1, attracting over 20 million users in just a few years. bStocks is doing the same thing on a global scale: selling U.S. stocks to retail investors in emerging markets with a $5 threshold, stablecoin settlement, and round-the-clock trading. Competitors are also following suit: in June 2025, Robinhood launched tokenized U.S. stocks in Europe based on Arbitrum, Kraken launched xStocks, and Ondo introduced Global Markets in the same year. The tokenized stock industry is in the early stage of expansion where "exchange giants crush with traffic, and professional issuers are marginalized."
Essentially, this is a transfer of pricing power. Price discovery for U.S. stocks has always been concentrated during the opening hours of U.S. exchanges, with other times' quotes serving only as references. When 62% of bStocks' trades occur during U.S. off-hours, it indicates that a significant portion of real trading demand is being fulfilled without a primary market price. At this point, prices are determined by on-chain market makers referencing stock index futures, overseas markets, and news. The price discovery power during weekends and nights has shifted from the NYSE and NASDAQ to the order books of crypto exchanges. The mechanism is that users in emerging markets are in different time zones, crypto exchanges operate 24/7, and stablecoin settlement eliminates the friction of cross-border remittances. As trading scales up, the opening prices of U.S. stocks will be influenced by weekend on-chain trading; whoever controls liquidity during off-hours will hold this portion of pricing power.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
For every order of magnitude the threshold is lowered, a new generation of investors emerges.
Off-hours no longer mean a halt in trading, just a change in trading venues.
Whoever controls liquidity during non-trading hours will gain the next pricing power.