The Statistics Behind the Milestone
Direct Stocks launched June 1, giving users access to over 7,000 US stocks and ETFs in-app alongside their existing crypto holdings. The product generated almost $3 billion in cumulative trading volume over the 22 trading days that made up that first month, Binance says, with customers buying equities at a pace of more than $150 million a day. Users are mostly buying tech names. The sector accounts for about 71% of Direct Stocks, Binance said, with semiconductor companies alone representing about 48%.
Who's Buying, and How
The divide is clear – some 73% of Direct Stocks’ clients came from emerging markets, according to Binance. In this case, the company uses the data as evidence of the need for change in countries that previously restricted retail traders from trading because of issues with brokerage accounts, bank transfers, minimum deposits, and access to overseas markets. Conversion rates confirm that. According to Binance, for every seven people who visited its stock-trading landing page, one opened an account and traded.
Mechanically speaking, users pay for purchases with stablecoins or available crypto balances with purchases as low as $5. Binance itself does not own the underlying securities. Nest Trading is an introducing broker, with Alpaca acting as the trade execution, clearing, settlement, custody, dividend and corporate actions agent. As the partnership has grown stronger, Binance has also revealed it has a stake in Alpaca. The partnership helps Binance offer equity exposure in its app while outsourcing the work of a licensed broker.
A Bigger Bet on Traditional Markets
Direct Stocks is just one piece of the puzzle. Binance also offers bStocks, tokenized 1:1 versions of U.S. shares (issued via affiliate BTech Holdings) that trade 24/7 and convert back to direct positions for free. Microsoft, Meta, and Palantir have entered the tokenized list as well.
Nevertheless, competitors are acting as well. Bitget has just introduced Stock+, its own way of accessing real U.S. stocks, which is funded using USDC. Meanwhile, Binance Research expects that cryptocurrency exchanges might attract 300 million equity investors and $2 trillion of funds by 2031. This comes as part of a bigger boom related to access to the markets; namely, the volume of pre-IPO perpetual futures trading increased from $1 billion to $22 billion, Securitize has been listed on NYSE, and SpaceX has raised $100 billion of retail orders.
“A billion dollars in 30 days is a sign of the demand that’s been waiting decades for a door to walk through,” said Shunyet Jan, Binance’s Head of Spot and Derivatives Business. “The walls that kept most of the world out of U.S. stocks were never as solid as they looked. We built this for the hundreds of millions of people who never had a way in.”
Binance says that if current growth continues, Direct Stocks could top $10 billion in acquired equities by the end of 2026. However, it cautions that the figure is illustrative rather than a formal projection or guarantee.
