Binance’s tokenized U.S. equities product, bStocks, now holds more than $1 billion in assets under management, the exchange announced on Thursday, attributing the figure to Dune Research onchain data as of Oct. 15. The tokens went live on June 11 with five listings.
Binance described bStocks as the fastest tokenized equity product to reach $1 billion. The release did not name the products it measured against, and Unchained could not find a public Dune dashboard that tracks bStocks. Ondo Global Markets said in May that its tokenized stocks had crossed $1 billion in total value locked less than eight months after launch, a different measure.
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Independent Data Puts bStocks First
Data from rwa.xyz on Oct. 16 ranked bStocks first by value among tokenized stock platforms, at $1.2 billion in a market of about $3.5 billion. Ondo came second with $893.7 million, and xStocks third with $600.4 million.
Users have swapped $6 billion worth of shares into and out of token form at a one-to-one rate, according to Binance, which says the tokens have traded more than $40 billion since launch, upward of $300 million on an average day. Close to 100 are now listed.
“The test of a tokenized stock isn’t the launch-day chart; it’s whether it still behaves like a market after the launch,” said Shunyet Jan, Binance’s head of exchange and trading, in the release.
What Holders Own
Binance says every token is backed 1:1 by the underlying security and can be redeemed for the stock itself rather than its cash value. The disclaimer in the same release says bStocks “are not stocks or shares” and do not give holders direct ownership of a share in the listed company. They are offered only under a prospectus approved in Abu Dhabi Global Market and are not available to U.S. persons.
The issuer, BTech Holdings, is a wholly owned Binance subsidiary. Ethena began backing its USDe stablecoin with bStocks in September. In an August review for Ethena’s Risk Committee, Kairos Research wrote that until a side letter restricts what the issuer can do with the backing shares, the spot leg “is unsecured credit exposure to a Binance affiliate rather than a claim on the stock.” Ethena has not said publicly whether that letter has been signed.
Binance first previewed bStocks in June alongside a direct U.S. stock trading service. That separate product reached $1 billion in assets within its first month, Binance said in July. In September, Binance let all eligible users, retail included, use supported bStocks as margin and futures collateral, including borrowing to build exposure of up to 5x. The exchange said it plans to extend bStocks from trading into hedging, margin and risk management.
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