Binance Founder CZ Predicts IPOs Will Move On Chain

On September 8, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) posted on social media predicting "IPOs will move on chain," indicating that the process of companies going public for fundraising will gradually shift to a blockchain-based tokenization method.

This statement comes against the backdrop of rapidly rising trading volumes in tokenized stocks: according to public data, the weekly trading volume in the tokenized stock market has reached approximately $3 billion, with a total locked value of about $110 million; in the second quarter of this year, trading volume for tokenized stocks on the Solana chain reached $5.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of about 2400%, up from just $1.34 million; the "SpaceX IPO" in June is considered one of the key catalytic events driving the significant increase in trading volume.

Currently, the tokenized stock sector is mainly dominated by three chains: Solana previously held 95% to 97% of the market share, with major platforms including Raydium, xStocks, and Sunrise under Backpack; Binance's bStocks platform on the Binance Smart Chain (BNB Chain) achieved an average daily trading volume of $676.8 million in July, with a total trading volume of $9.41 billion that month, accounting for about 83% of the market total; Robinhood Chain, launched on July 1, followed closely behind, with an average daily trading volume of about $29.7 million by the end of July. However, some analysts point out that a significant portion of this trading volume comes from token incentive activities and liquidity mining rewards, rather than genuine user trading demand.

For example, Binance's bStocks product, launched on June 11 this year, is open to users outside the U.S. and initially supports five tokenized stocks: Nvidia (NVDAB), Tesla (TSLAB), Circle (CRCLB), Micron (MUB), and SanDisk (SNDKB); users can convert stocks held in their Binance brokerage accounts to tokens on the BNB Chain at a 1:1 ratio, with no fees and no lock-up period. The tokens are issued by Binance Group's affiliated company BTech Holdings, with the underlying stocks held in custody by Alpaca Securities, responsible for clearing and dividends. The token prices are tracked by an oracle to reflect the corresponding stock movements, and redemption for physical stocks must be completed during normal trading hours, while on-chain transfers allow for 24/7 settlement.

Previously, most tokenized stock products, including Binance's bStocks and Robinhood's European token version, deliberately excluded shareholder voting rights to avoid complex U.S. securities registration requirements; however, Kraken's xStocks recently utilized the Jersey legal system to design a contractual voting rights penetration mechanism—token holders can submit voting instructions through their Kraken accounts, and after aggregation and recording on-chain, the Jersey custodian Backed Assets, which holds the actual stocks, votes on their behalf at real shareholder meetings. This allows token holders to gain voting rights similar to real shareholders without triggering U.S. securities registration requirements, which is believed to help attract institutional funds with fiduciary responsibilities that must exercise voting rights into the tokenized stock field.

From a market mechanism perspective, CZ's prediction reflects the financial logic behind it: cryptocurrency exchanges are attempting to gradually absorb the two core aspects of the traditional securities market—trading and primary market issuance—into their on-chain ecosystem. Once IPO fundraising and subsequent stock trading can be completed on-chain, exchanges and related token issuers can bypass the intermediary roles of traditional stock exchanges and brokerages, directly obtaining income from trading fees and tokenization service fees, while replicating the 24/7 trading feature, originally exclusive to cryptocurrencies, onto traditional stock assets, further extending user trading time and capital retention on their platforms. The xStocks solution to the voting rights issue addresses a critical shortcoming of tokenized stocks compared to traditional stocks, and once this model is replicated across more assets, the motivation for institutional funds and actual IPO issuers to participate in tokenized issuance will significantly increase, thereby expanding CZ's described "IPO on-chain" from a trading-level imitation to the primary market issuance level.

Additional information: Zhao Changpeng founded Binance in 2017 and developed it into the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume within eight months; in November 2023, he pleaded guilty to violating the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, resigned as CEO of Binance, and paid a $50 million fine, while Binance paid a $4.3 billion penalty. Zhao Changpeng subsequently served a four-month prison sentence in 2024; in October 2025, he was pardoned by U.S. President Trump. According to Forbes' estimates in April this year, his net worth is approximately $111.1 billion, making him the richest person in Canada and the 17th richest person in the world. He currently serves as a strategic advisor to the Pakistan Cryptocurrency Committee and a digital asset advisor to the President of Kyrgyzstan, and has pledged to donate 90% to 99% of his wealth, following the examples of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Source: Public Information