Why Gen Z’s Surprising ETF Craze Is Shaking Up the Trading World, Says Binance

Ever wonder why Gen Z traders on Binance seem to have developed a newfound affection for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), suddenly dedicating a hefty 25% of their trading volume to them in early August? It’s like watching a younger generation carefully tiptoe away from the chaos of individual stocks—which dropped from 77% to 74.2% in their portfolio—and instead cozy up to ETFs, which climbed from 18.5% to nearly 22% in just a month. The data from Binance Research paints a fascinating portrait: Gen Z trades less frequently than Millennials or Gen X, yet a striking 22% have never sold a stock, as if they’re holding tight to their financial bets. Could it be a silent form of patience—or maybe skepticism about leverage, since most shy away from leveraged and inverse ETFs? The landscape is shifting, and with Binance’s direct equities product only hitting stride recently, we’re just starting to scratch the surface of longer-term trends. Curious to see how these insights stack against older generations and what this means for the future of trading? LEARN MORE.

Gen Z traders on Binance are allocating a growing share of their equity activity to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with the products accounting for 25% of the cohort’s trading volume in early August, according to Binance Research.

ETFs accounted for 21.9% of Gen Z net equity inflows in July, up from 18.5% in June, while the share going to individual stocks fell to 74.2% from 77%.

The analysis examined activity across direct equities, tokenized stocks and traditional finance perpetuals, comparing Gen Z accounts with Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers on measures including trading frequency, net flows and leverage use.

The younger cohort traded less frequently than other working-age generations across all three products. Gen Z averaged 13 monthly trades in TradFi perpetuals, compared with 17 for Millennials and 16.5 for Gen X.

Among Gen Z direct-equity accounts, 22% had never placed a sell order, compared with 19% of Gen X accounts and 9% of Baby Boomer accounts. Millennials had the highest share of buy-only accounts at 30%. Among those Gen Z buy-only accounts, top assets by cumulative purchases included Broadcom, Tesla and the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF, according to Binance.

Net buyers by generation and product. Source: Binance

Gen Z also showed relatively little appetite for leveraged and inverse ETFs; 88.2% of Gen Z TradFi perpetual accounts recorded no activity in those products, compared with 84.5% of Millennials and 85.9% of Gen X.

Binance cautioned that its direct-equities product only reached meaningful scale in June, leaving a relatively short data window for establishing longer-term trends.

Binance bStocks briefly overtakes xStocks

Binance’s bStocks briefly overtook Kraken’s xStocks as the second-largest tokenized stock issuer this week, less than two months after launching. As of Tuesday, bStocks held $610.6 million in tokenized stock value, compared with $601.2 million for xStocks, according to Token Terminal data.

The positions had reversed by Friday, with Token Terminal showing xStocks at $610.7 million and bStocks at $579.6 million, representing 22.3% and 21.2% of the roughly $2.7 billion market, respectively. Ondo Finance remained the largest issuer at $971.8 million.

The broader tokenized stock market has continued to expand, with RWA.xyz tracking $2.43 billion in distributed value as of Friday, up about 5% over the past 30 days.

Tokenized stock market cap by issuer. Source: Token Terminal

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