Gen Z Prefers ETFs and Trades Less Than Older Generations: Binance

Binance data indicated that Gen Z is directing an increasing portion of its equity activity toward ETFs, while trading less often and relying on lower levels of leverage compared with older working-age groups.

According to Binance Research, Gen Z traders on the platform are directing an increasing portion of their equity activity toward exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which accounted for 25% of the group’s trading volume in early August.

ETFs made up 21.9% of Gen Z’s net equity inflows in July, rising from 18.5% in June, while the portion directed toward individual stocks declined from 77% to 74.2%.

The analysis reviewed activity involving direct equities, tokenized stocks and traditional finance perpetuals, comparing Gen Z accounts with those of Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers across factors such as trading frequency, net fund flows and leverage usage.

The younger generation traded less often than other working-age groups across all three product categories. Gen Z averaged 13 trades per month in TradFi perpetuals, compared with 17 among Millennials and 16.5 for Gen X.

Among Gen Z direct-equity accounts, 22% had never executed a sell order, compared with 19% of Gen X accounts and 9% of Baby Boomer accounts. Millennials recorded the largest proportion of buy-only accounts at 30%. For Gen Z accounts that only made purchases, Broadcom, Tesla and the Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF ranked among the top assets by cumulative buying activity, according to Binance.

Gen Z also displayed limited interest in leveraged and inverse ETFs, with 88.2% of its TradFi perpetual accounts recording no activity in these products, compared with 84.5% among Millennials and 85.9% for Gen X.

Binance cautioned that its direct-equities offering only reached significant scale in June, meaning the available data period remains relatively short for identifying longer-term market trends.

Binance bStocks Briefly Surpasses xStocks#

Binance’s bStocks briefly moved ahead of Kraken’s xStocks to become the second-largest tokenized stock issuer this week, fewer than two months after its launch. As of Tuesday, bStocks had $610.6 million in tokenized stock value, compared with $601.2 million for xStocks, according to Token Terminal data.

By Friday, the ranking had shifted again, with Token Terminal data placing xStocks at $610.7 million and bStocks at $579.6 million. The two issuers represented 22.3% and 21.2% of the approximately $2.7 billion market, respectively, while Ondo Finance continued to lead with $971.8 million.

The wider tokenized stock market has continued to grow, with RWA.xyz reporting $2.43 billion in distributed value as of Friday, marking an increase of around 5% over the previous 30 days.