How has Binance's stock business performed in the 30 days since its launch?

Author: Zhou, ChainCatcher

It has been over a month since Binance announced the launch of its stock trading business on June 1.

According to official disclosed data, among more than 7,000 tradable U.S. stocks and ETFs, over 700 have been traded. As of the week of July 1, Binance stock users saw a net increase of $193.3 million in exposure, exceeding $190 million for the second consecutive week.

In terms of tokenized stocks, bStocks also launched on June 11.

A month later, is there real buying activity in spot stocks, what are users primarily buying, and has bStocks carved out its own usage scenario?

Let's take a closer look.

1. First Month Breakthrough, Buying Concentrated in Emerging Markets

First, let's look at the spot stocks.

Binance's stock spot trading covers over 7,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, supporting fractional purchases, stablecoin settlement, and extended trading hours. On July 6, Binance continued to add stocks such as ANTA, CBRS, DISK, FOTO, KMEM, QNT, STRC, etc. In terms of trading structure, Nest Trading is responsible for order referral, while Alpaca Securities handles execution, clearing, settlement, and custody.

In terms of usage rate, according to Binance Research, over 700 of the 7,000 stocks have been traded. This number indicates that this business is not just a facade, with about 10% of the stocks being accessed by users within a month. On the other hand, it also shows that early demand has not been evenly distributed, and users are not treating Binance as a complete U.S. stock supermarket.

In terms of capital flow, the report shows that as of the week of July 1, Binance stock users had a net increase of $193.3 million in stock exposure, down from $227.3 million the previous week. Although this represents a 15% decrease, it has remained above $190 million for two consecutive weeks.

Regarding the source of buying, users from emerging markets contributed 81% of the net inflow, remaining unchanged for two weeks. In terms of user numbers, another previous data point from Binance Research indicated that nearly 93% of Binance's stock trading users come from emerging markets.

Image source: Binance Equity Weekly Fund Flow

This indicates that Binance is not competing for users in the most mature markets of traditional brokerages, but rather finding a group of users willing to buy U.S. stocks directly with stablecoin accounts in markets with weaker cross-border access, U.S. asset allocation, and local brokerage experiences.

Thus, early buying activity in Binance's stock spot trading has emerged. However, this buying is not evenly distributed among the over 7,000 stocks but is concentrated on certain high-interest assets and users from emerging markets.

2. Technology Sector Attracts 83% of Net Inflow, Thematic Trading Characteristics Emerge

If we only look at net inflows, there is indeed some demand for Binance's stock business. The more important question is, what type of demand is it?

From the weekly report data released by Binance, as of the week of July 1, the technology sector absorbed a net inflow of $159 million, accounting for 83% of all net inflows, indicating a high concentration of trading themes.

Micron's earnings report was the clearest catalyst of the week. After Micron released strong results after the market closed on June 24, the AI storage theme shifted from a net outflow of $1 million the previous week to a net inflow of $47 million. Capital inflow in the semiconductor industry rose from $22 million to $108 million, nearly a fivefold increase.

On the individual stock level, MU, MUU, SNDK, AMAT, INTC, and other AI storage and semiconductor chains absorbed a large amount of capital. MU, along with the 2x leveraged product MUU, collectively received a net inflow of $58 million, accounting for about 30% of the week's stock net inflow.

This type of capital is not entirely mindless chasing. The weekly report shows that users net sold $11 million of MUU the week before the earnings report, then net bought $24 million after the report confirmed.

This indicates that Binance stock users have a higher risk appetite, but it is not simply impulsive high leverage. They reduce risk around events and then re-enter after confirming the results.

The report also states that about 71% of stock holders in Binance's stock products have their stock holdings allocated to the technology sector, with about 48% of funds flowing into semiconductors, which have trading volumes approximately 23 times that of other categories.

In terms of thematic capital flow, 25% flows into AI infrastructure and computing power, 22% into quantum computing, and there is also relatively higher allocation in frontier themes such as space and satellites, robotics, and humanoid robots. During the same period, broader ETF capital flows were mainly concentrated in semiconductors and AI storage.

On the other hand, thematic switching is extremely rapid. The defense and national security theme, which was the hottest the previous week, saw net inflows drop from $150 million to $3 million, a decline of 98%. Funds related to SpaceX also retreated from their highs, but SPCX still had a net inflow of $29 million, continuing to rank among the top for individual stock inflows.

This set of changes is very representative. Binance stock users are not buying a traditional long-term U.S. stock portfolio, but rather high-narrative assets such as AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, SpaceX, Tesla, and Circle. They pay attention to earnings reports, policies, mergers and acquisitions, and market sentiment, with trading logic more akin to the catalysts and volatility familiar to crypto users.

This also explains why users from emerging markets have become the main force. For many emerging market users, buying U.S. thematic stocks, leveraged ETFs, or popular private equity-to-public assets through local brokerages is costly, lengthy, and offers a poor experience. Binance places stablecoins, spot stocks, and thematic assets in the same account, lowering not the overall investment threshold, but the expression threshold for trading-type demand.

Therefore, what has emerged from Binance's stock spot trading is more of a thematic trading demand.

3. Tokenized Stocks Enter Pressure Testing, On-chain Shares Still Hold Uncertainty

Now let's look at the tokenized stock business.

Binance officially states that bStocks are tokenized securities, which are certificates representing specific financial instruments and do not equate to directly holding shares or stocks of the underlying listed companies.

Spot stocks answer whether users can buy U.S. stocks on Binance. bStocks answer whether users still want to trade U.S. stock exposure when the U.S. market is closed.

According to the bStocks report released by Binance Research on July 2, about 44% of transactions in bStocks occur outside regular U.S. trading hours, while matching stock spots account for about 32%. Even during weekends when the U.S. market is completely closed, bStocks still average about $346,000 in transactions per hour.

Among the pressure tests during three holiday weekends, bStocks reflected 87% of Monday opening changes in advance, correctly predicting the direction 21 out of 22 times, with an accuracy rate of 96%. During the Juneteenth long weekend, the average price difference between bStocks and regulated markets was about 0.12%, the smallest of the three tests.

Specifically, the news of SpaceX confirming a $60 billion acquisition of Cursor occurred before the U.S. market opened, and the tokenized SPCX had already completed its rise and fall before the opening. Micron's earnings report was released two minutes after the U.S. market closed, and MUB rose 7% within five minutes and 13% within an hour, having basically completed its repricing before the next day's opening.

These data indicate that the real usage scenario for bStocks is quite specific. It is not because everyone wants to put stocks on-chain, but because there are still people wanting to trade U.S. stock exposure when the U.S. market is closed.

However, the establishment of demand for tokenized stocks does not mean that bStocks has captured the largest share.

On June 26, BNB Chain officially disclosed that there are already over 709 tokenized stocks and ETFs on BNB Chain, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $5 billion and a market capitalization exceeding $1 billion. Meanwhile, the tokenized version of the same company on BNB Chain may not be limited to one, such as SpaceX having bStocks' SPCXB, Ondo's SPCXon, and xStocks' SPCXx simultaneously.

More notably, Ondo is the main venue for tokenized stock trading on BNB Chain. According to Dune data, BSC contributed $5.12 billion of the cumulative DEX trading volume of approximately $6 billion for Ondo. This means that the demand for on-chain tokenized stocks may have been validated, but this incremental demand may not primarily belong to bStocks.

Conclusion

A month has passed, and about 10% of the stocks in spot trading have been accessed by users, but overall, the scale is limited and concentrated among users from emerging markets and a few leading assets.

This demand has emerged against a backdrop of regulatory turbulence. On June 24, Binance withdrew its MiCA license application submitted in Greece, and after the end of the EU transition period on July 1, it notified users in multiple EU countries to suspend certain services and halt new user registrations.

On the bStocks side, the usage scenario for trading U.S. stock exposure during closed market hours has been validated, and the speed of price discovery has withstood several holiday pressure tests. However, in the entire ecosystem of tokenized stocks, the bulk of trading volume has flowed to third parties like Ondo, and bStocks' own share lacks independent data support.

Overall, after one month of launching Binance's stock business, real demand has indeed emerged. However, this demand resembles the trading needs of crypto users migrating to U.S. stocks, focusing on narratives and events rather than long-term allocations.