Binance began offering options on more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds on 1 September, available to eligible users outside the United States.
The contracts are physically settled. Exercising a call delivers the underlying shares rather than a cash payment, and those shares are held in custody by a US broker. That distinguishes the product from the equity-linked perpetual futures Binance already runs, which provide price exposure without ever touching a security.
Users can buy calls and puts on names including Tesla and Nvidia, alongside major ETFs. Losses for buyers are capped at the premium paid.
The launch adds to an existing Binance offering covering more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs, plus its bStocks and equity-linked perpetuals lines.
The plumbing is entirely conventional
The structure is worth reading closely, because it is the substance of the story.
Orders are introduced through Nest Trading Limited, Binance’s broker-dealer regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market. Nest routes every order to Alpaca Securities LLC, a US-registered, self-clearing broker-dealer and FINRA member, which handles execution, clearing, settlement and custody. Alpaca holds the shares after exercise.
Trading hours follow the US market: 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, with some ETF and ETN contracts running to 4:15 p.m.
There is no blockchain in that chain. No token represents the share, no smart contract governs settlement, no on-chain record exists. A user opens a Binance account and ends up with an equity position sitting at a FINRA member in New York, cleared through the same infrastructure any US brokerage uses.
The arrangement separates Binance’s customer interface from the regulated US brokerage machinery underneath it, which is the point. For a company that pleaded guilty to US charges in 2023 and continues to exclude US users from this product, routing execution and custody through a registered American broker-dealer while introducing orders from an Abu Dhabi-regulated entity is a deliberate compliance architecture rather than an incidental one.
This is brokerage, not tokenisation
The distinction separates Binance’s approach from almost everything else happening in this space right now, and it cuts against the prevailing narrative.
Coinbase launched tokenized stocks on Base last week, with Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet each backed one-to-one by a real share held in a regulated trust, tradable around the clock through self-custody wallets and composable with roughly 50 DeFi protocols. Robinhood Chain’s stock tokens work differently again, operating as derivative contracts under the EU’s MiFID II framework that convey price exposure without ownership or shareholder rights.
Both are attempts to move equities onto blockchains. Binance has done the opposite: it has moved its users into conventional equity markets, keeping crypto rails entirely out of the transaction.
That choice has trade-offs. Tokenized stocks trade 24/7; Binance’s options follow US market hours. Tokenized stocks can be used as DeFi collateral; shares held at Alpaca cannot. But physical settlement through a FINRA member delivers something neither tokenized alternative currently does at scale, which is an unambiguous claim on a real security under established US securities law, with no question about what the holder actually owns.
CoinDesk noted this week that demand for tokenized equities has grown from $16 billion to more than $590 billion in perpetual futures within a year, while warning that two tokens can trade under the same ticker while granting entirely different rights. Binance’s answer to that ambiguity is to avoid tokenisation altogether.
The volume number explains the timing
The demand signal behind the launch is difficult to overstate.
Binance’s traditional finance perpetual futures volume reached roughly $433.4 billion in August, against $29.5 billion in January. Equity-linked perpetuals accounted for about 79% of that August total at $342.9 billion, compared with $410.9 million in January.
That is an eight-month increase of more than 800 times in equity-linked perpetual volume alone. Users are coming to Binance for exposure to US stocks, not only crypto, and doing so at a scale that justifies building regulated brokerage infrastructure to serve them.
The broader tokenized equity sector has grown to roughly $2.6 billion in distributed value from $346 million twelve months ago. Binance’s equity-linked perpetuals alone did more volume in a single month than the entire tokenized equity market holds in value.
Phase one is deliberately narrow
The initial product carries meaningful restrictions.
It is long-only and limit-order-only, meaning users can buy calls and puts but cannot write them, and cannot place market orders. That caps buyer risk at the premium paid and removes the unlimited-loss scenarios that come with selling naked options.
It excludes US users entirely. Eligible retail customers must complete onboarding and compliance checks, and Binance says it will provide education materials and risk disclosures under its ADGM framework. The company has indicated more option listings will follow.
For a first phase, that combination reads as a conservative launch of a product that could expand considerably. Writing options, market orders and a wider strike range are the obvious next steps if the initial rollout holds up.
The convergence has a direction
Coinbase, Kraken and Robinhood have all broadened international stock access over the same period, and Binance is now the largest exchange to route users into regulated US equity infrastructure rather than build a parallel on-chain version of it.
What that suggests is that the traffic between crypto and traditional finance is running both ways at once. Tokenisation moves securities onto blockchains for composability and continuous trading. Brokerage integration moves crypto users into securities markets for legal certainty and physical settlement.
Binance has bet that a meaningful share of its users want the second thing, and $342.9 billion of equity-linked perpetual volume in a single month is a reasonable basis for that bet.
FAQ
What does physically settled mean?
Exercising a contract delivers the actual underlying shares rather than a cash payment reflecting the contract’s value. Alpaca Securities holds those shares in custody afterwards. Cash-settled derivatives, including Binance’s existing equity-linked perpetuals, transfer value without transferring any security.
Who can trade these options?
Eligible users outside the United States. US users are excluded. Customers must complete Binance’s onboarding and compliance checks. Phase one is long-only and limit-order-only, so users can buy calls and puts but cannot write them, with losses capped at the premium paid.
How does the order actually get filled?
Orders are introduced through Nest Trading Limited, Binance’s Abu Dhabi Global Market-regulated broker-dealer, and routed to Alpaca Securities LLC, a US-registered self-clearing broker-dealer and FINRA member, which handles execution, clearing, settlement and custody. Trading follows US market hours of 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET, with some ETF and ETN contracts until 4:15 p.m.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions.
