Binance built its empire on Bitcoin and altcoins. Now it wants a piece of Samsung-and-chipmaker territory too.
The exchange is considering giving users exposure to stocks from Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil, co-CEO Richard Teng told Fortune at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. The idea is part of a broader push to turn the world’s largest crypto exchange into a platform where users can trade nearly everything.
Teng framed the move as defensive as much as ambitious. He described the strategy as a way to make Binance less dependent on any single market’s mood, and he pointed squarely at customer requests.
“We are weatherproofing ourselves,” Teng said.
According to Teng, users have asked for exposure to the top 10 names in each of those four markets.
What Binance is actually weighing
The key word here is considering. No confirmed plans exist yet for trading in Hong Kong, South Korean, Taiwanese, or Brazilian equities.
For now, Binance’s equity ambitions are centered on US stocks. In June 2026, the exchange rolled out direct trading for more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs, aimed at users outside the US.
That same month, Binance launched bStocks, a product offering tokenized equities and ETFs on BNB Chain. Tokenized stocks are blockchain-based tokens designed to track the price of a traditional share. Think of them as a digital mirror of a stock that lives on a crypto network instead of a brokerage ledger.
That structure matters for one big reason: crypto markets never close. About 40% of volume in certain stock-referenced products happens outside traditional market hours, with Asian traders playing a notable role.
The numbers behind the pivot
By September 2026, the global on-chain value of tokenized stocks had crossed $3 billion. BNB Chain accounts for roughly $1 billion of that total, spread across 1.8 million holders.
For perspective on scale, Binance processed $34 trillion in trading volume for 300 million users in the previous year. Against that backdrop, a $3 billion global tokenized stock market looks small.
Teng made his comments on the sidelines of TOKEN2049, which ran October 7-8, 2026, in Singapore.
Background: from crypto pure play to multi-asset ambitions
Teng succeeded Changpeng Zhao in 2023 and became co-CEO in December 2025. His background in regulatory environments is often cited as an asset for Binance as it moves into products that sit closer to traditional finance.
Teng has highlighted that tokenized assets can connect with decentralized finance tools. In practice, that could mean using a tokenized share as collateral or deploying it in on-chain lending, something a conventional brokerage account does not allow.
For Binance, the strategic logic is about resilience. Teng’s “weatherproofing” line captures the goal: fewer days when the whole business depends on one market’s performance.
What to watch next: whether Binance moves from considering to announcing, which of the four markets comes first, and whether the offering arrives as tokenized products on BNB Chain or through direct trading like its US stock launch. Regulatory responses in each jurisdiction will likely shape the timeline as much as user demand does.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.