Binance has rolled out access to more than 8,000 US stocks and exchange-traded funds for customers outside the United States. The exchange is letting users buy fractional shares for as little as $5 with zero commission, using stablecoins USDC, USDT or the exchange’s own BNB token.
How the service works
The trading is facilitated by broker-dealer Nest Trading and New York-based Alpaca, which handles custody, dividend payments and corporate actions. That setup means Binance itself isn’t directly holding the securities — the infrastructure is outsourced to regulated intermediaries. Non-US users can start buying slices of companies like Apple, Tesla or Amazon without needing a traditional brokerage account.
A return to stock tokens after a 2021 pause
This isn’t Binance’s first foray into stock trading. The exchange launched stock tokens in 2021 but halted the product later that year after regulators in several jurisdictions flagged them as unregistered securities. Binance said at the time it would focus on compliance. The relaunch appears to avoid the earlier legal structure: instead of issuing tokenized derivatives, the new service uses real stock purchases held by a broker, with the user’s crypto serving as the payment method.
Plans for bStocks and on-chain utility
Binance also said it plans to introduce bStocks, a feature that would let users self-tokenize their purchased equities on the BNB Chain. That would allow the stocks to be used in decentralized finance applications — for example, as collateral in lending protocols or within liquidity pools. The bStocks feature hasn’t launched yet, and Binance hasn’t given a timeline. But if it does arrive, it would let customers move their stock holdings into the crypto ecosystem without selling them.
Competitors already moving
Binance isn’t alone in chasing this market. Rivals including OKX, Coinbase and Kraken have all expanded into tokenized stock trading for global users. The idea is straightforward: give non-US investors a way to access American equities using the crypto they already hold, without having to go through a traditional bank or brokerage. The difference for Binance is the sheer scale — 8,000 stocks and ETFs dwarfs what most competitors offer.
For now, the service is only open to non-US customers. US users remain barred from the platform’s main exchange due to ongoing regulatory issues. Whether bStocks will face similar scrutiny — or how regulators in Europe and Asia view the custody arrangement with Nest and Alpaca — are questions that will likely follow the rollout.
