Binance reveals stake in Alpaca as U.S. stocks push widens
Binance has confirmed it holds a minority stake in brokerage Alpaca as the crypto exchange rolls out expanded access to U.S. stocks and ETFs for eligible users outside the United States. The disclosure sheds light on the partners, revenue splits and mechanics behind Binance’s newly launched equities offering.
What Binance is offering
- Access to more than 7,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs, with fractional shares available from $5.
- 24-hour trading on weekdays (Monday–Friday).
- Funding options that include stablecoins and selected crypto balances; USDC is the primary stablecoin, with BNB, USDT, USD1 and $U supported for eligible users.
Who does what
- Nest Trading is the introducing broker.
- Alpaca Securities handles execution, clearing, settlement and custody—Binance says it neither handles nor custodies the securities.
- Alpaca was chosen for its API-first model, product breadth, ease of integration and regulated broker-dealer infrastructure. “At Alpaca, we’ve built a regulated brokerage infrastructure to help partners expand access to financial markets in a scalable way,” Alpaca CEO Yoshi Yokokawa said.
The commercial and revenue terms revealed
- Binance holds a minority stake in Alpaca (no percentage disclosed).
- Binance will receive 50% of Alpaca’s payment-for-order-flow (PFOF) fees tied to the product.
- Binance is entitled to 65% of remaining profit from user securities lending after interest is paid to users.
These splits clarify how Binance may monetize the stock product—but they also highlight areas that typically draw scrutiny, such as PFOF’s impact on execution quality and the revenue link to securities lending.
Tokenized stocks and the roadmap
- The current product does not deliver tokenized shares at launch.
- Binance says bStocks, its planned tokenized securities product that would let eligible users convert supported equity holdings into on-chain assets usable for lending and liquidity, will arrive in the coming weeks.
- Alpaca is already a major player in tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs; earlier data showed it holding roughly 94% market share for custody of tokenized U.S. equities.
Timing and user options
- Binance says users can opt into fully paid securities lending starting June 4, 2026.
Why this matters
This partnership gives Binance a pathway into traditional markets without directly holding customers’ securities, while Alpaca extends its reach via one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges. The deal also underscores the trend of crypto platforms becoming multi-asset marketplaces—pairing regulated brokerage plumbing with blockchain-native distribution and future tokenization plans. At the same time, revenue arrangements like PFOF and lending splits will likely prompt questions from users and regulators about transparency and execution quality as these hybrid offerings scale.
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