Competition in the tokenized stock sector continues to accelerate
Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News
On June 11, Binance announced the launch of its tokenized securities product bStocks, with the first batch of five bStocks trading pairs available: Circle (CRCLB), Micron (MUB), NVIDIA (NVDAB), Sandisk (SNDKB), and Tesla (TSLAB).
bStocks is issued by BTech Holdings Limited, an affiliate of Binance. Each token is backed 1:1 by U.S. stocks held by regulated custodians, deployed on BNB Chain, and supports 24/7 trading, self-custody withdrawal, and DeFi applications. This is the first batch of tokenized securities products officially approved by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) and included in its official securities list.
In the first half of 2026, Binance has been expanding into traditional financial assets. It launched TradFi perpetual contracts for gold and silver in January, integrated prediction markets in April, rolled out SpaceX Pre-IPO perpetual contracts in May, and opened zero-commission U.S. stock trading in early June. bStocks allows users to convert their held U.S. stocks into tokens on BNB Chain. For Binance, the significance of bStocks lies in turning a distribution channel into infrastructure—stocks are no longer the end, but an input to on-chain finance.
Product Structure of bStocks
To understand bStocks, it is first necessary to distinguish between the two layers of U.S. stock products launched by Binance in June.
The first layer is traditional U.S. stock trading. On June 1, Binance opened zero-commission trading of over 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs to non-U.S. users, allowing them to buy real stocks using USDC, USDT, or BNB. Transactions are matched by Nest Trading Limited (NTL), an ADGM-licensed broker, while clearing, custody, and dividends are handled by Alpaca Securities, a New York-based brokerage infrastructure firm. This layer is traditional securities trading, following the trading hours of the U.S. stock market.
The data one week after the launch of this layer speaks volumes. According to Binance Research, the AUM of U.S. stock trading exceeded $400 million within seven days. 84% of trading volume came from emerging market users, a quarter of users were under 25 years old, and nearly 40% of transaction amounts were below $100. Shunyet Jan, Head of Spot and Derivatives at Binance, said this indicates that demand is concentrated in groups that traditional platforms have never served well, including emerging markets, young people, and small traders. In terms of capital flow, the IT sector attracted 57% of allocations in the first week, with semiconductors and hardware accounting for 44% alone—reflecting users' concentrated bets on AI infrastructure. 70% of users chose to hold positions overnight, indicating that most users are allocating buyers.
The second layer is bStocks tokenization. Users can independently convert stocks held in the first layer into BEP-20 tokens on BNB Chain at a 1:1 ratio. Conversion is free of fees, has no lock-up period, no minimum holding requirement, and can be converted back to direct stock holding status at any time. Once converted to bStocks, these tokens are no longer restricted by U.S. stock trading hours, supporting 24/7 trading with settlement completed in one second.
The core difference of this design is that users initiate the tokenization operation themselves, converting their already held stocks into on-chain assets. Most tokenized stock projects use a model where the issuer pre-mints a fixed batch of tokenized assets for trading, but Binance gives the conversion right to users. It should be noted that bStocks' price tracking relies on oracle feeds to keep the token value in sync with the underlying stock. While on-chain settlement is instant, if users want to redeem bStocks back to direct stock holding status, the redemption operation still needs to be executed during regular U.S. stock trading hours.
The issuing entity, BTech Holdings Limited, is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) registered in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM). bStocks are legally classified as "Certificates representing certain Financial Instruments," and holders do not directly own shares of the underlying listed companies. The FSRA has approved the issuer's prospectus, and bStocks are among the first tokenized products to be included in the FSRA's official securities list.
What Can On-Chain Stocks Do?
According to the bStocks Conversion Product Terms effective June 11, this conversion service is a closed-loop operation within the Binance ecosystem. Only stocks purchased through Binance Stock Trading (i.e., the first layer) and held in NTL's omnibus account can be converted to bStocks; users cannot transfer stocks from external brokers for tokenization.
The counterparty for conversion is Nest Trading Limited (NTL). NTL acts as a market maker for each conversion transaction with users: users sell stocks to NTL in exchange for Certificates, or sell Certificates back to NTL in exchange for stocks. Users do not obtain tokens directly from the issuer BTech Holdings.
bStocks are based on the BEP-677 token standard of BNB Chain, which is specifically designed for real-world assets. Its core capability is a built-in multiplier mechanism that can automatically handle dividends and stock splits by adjusting the balance at the display layer without minting or burning tokens.
For users, this means two things: First, dividends are automatically credited. When the underlying company distributes dividends, the net dividend value (after deducting the U.S. 30% withholding tax) is automatically reinvested via the on-chain multiplier—users do not need any operation, and their wallet balance increases directly. Binance says this process is more efficient than the T+2 settlement cycle of traditional brokers. Second, stock splits are completed seamlessly. If the underlying stock splits, the on-chain multiplier adjusts synchronously, and the number of tokens held by users and their displayed value are updated automatically without manual operation.
Self-custody is another key feature: users can withdraw bStocks to Trust Wallet, Binance Wallet, or any compatible BNB Chain wallet address for self-custody on-chain. This means bStocks are no longer confined to Binance's closed ecosystem and can be used in DeFi protocols on BNB Chain for lending, providing liquidity, or as collateral.
Users can trade via the Convert function with an equivalent amount as low as 0.01 USDC. The underlying assets of all bStocks can be verified in real time through Binance's Proof of Collateral page. The order fees for the first five trading pairs are waived until September 1.
The Tokenized Stock Sector Is Accelerating
As of June 2026, the total market capitalization of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) has reached $31.8 billion, an increase of 589% from the beginning of 2025. Among them, bonds and money market funds contributed an increment of $6.5 billion, while stock assets expanded by 422% during the same period. Binance Research recently released a report stating that even under moderate adoption rates, tokenized assets will reach $1.6 trillion by 2030, and crypto exchanges have the ability to introduce $5 trillion in new equity capital to the global market.
Tokenized stocks are still a relatively new subcategory of RWA, but their growth rate has started to accelerate. According to a CoinGecko report, when tokenized stocks were launched in July 2025, monthly spot trading volume was only $2.33 billion. Although it declined in the next two months, the spot trading volume of tokenized stocks has exceeded $4 billion for four consecutive months since then.
Similar to tokenized gold, the total spot trading volume of tokenized stocks in Q1 2026 reached $15.12 billion, exceeding the $14.84 billion in the last two quarters of 2025.
Tesla, Circle, and NVIDIA contribute the most to the trading volume of tokenized stocks. To date, their average monthly trading volumes are $540 million, $450 million, and $440 million respectively.
Despite integration with multiple centralized exchanges, the trading activity of the top 5 tokenized stocks is still negligible compared to their real-world counterparts, accounting for less than 1% of the total trading volume in the TradFi stock market.