Jacob Joseph

The product layer is extending too. On 1 June 2026, Binance opened spot equity trading covering 7,000+ US stocks and ETFs for eligible non-US users, with fractional shares from $5. bStocks lets users convert eligible positions into tokenized representations on-chain. Full report from @CoinDesk Research, commissioned by @binance: coindesk.com/research/the-e…

Traditional U.S. equity markets close from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. Crypto venues do not. Across six weekends year-to-date, Sunday night pricing on Binance's WTI perpetuals explained roughly 86% of the eventual Monday opening gap in traditional oil markets, and called the direction correctly every time.

Binance added gold perpetuals in December and silver in January during a precious-metals rally. During Q1 2026, gold perpetuals averaged $1.06B in daily volume and silver $1.41B Commodities now make up 88.3% of Binance's RWA-linked derivatives volume.

RESEARCH: Crypto and traditional markets ran as separate worlds for most of the past decade, linked only at the fiat on-ramp. That boundary is dissolving. In 2026, crypto exchanges processed nearly $1T year-to-date across real-world asset instruments, with Binance accounting for 60.9% of total volume.

The next phase is not just adding more products, but connecting traditional-market access with crypto-native infrastructure. In December 2025, Binance received full authorization from Abu Dhabi Global Market across entities covering exchange operation, clearing and custody, and broker-dealer functions — a structure that supports its broader move into regulated market infrastructure and US-equity access. For crypto exchanges, the competitive question is increasingly who can connect trading, payments, yield, fiat rails, and traditional assets within one ecosystem. Full report from @CoinDesk Research, commissioned by @binance: coindesk.com/research/the-e…

The scale of Binance’s user base gives that ecosystem a powerful distribution advantage. With more than 316M registered users, Binance’s user base is larger than the likes of Robinhood, eToro, Webull, and Revolut. That gives the platform a large built-in audience for payments, savings, yield, transfers, cards, and access to traditional-market products.

Binance is one of the clearest examples of this convergence moving from trading activity into a broader financial-services model. Its expansion is built around three core pillars: pay, hold, and send. Since 2021, Binance Pay has processed more than $280B in cumulative transaction volume, while Binance Earn distributed roughly $1.2B in rewards in 2025.

RESEARCH: Centralized crypto exchanges are no longer simply venues for buying and selling digital assets. Leading platforms are evolving into broader financial ecosystems where crypto trading sits alongside payments, savings, yield, cards, and increasingly access to traditional financial assets through RWA perpetuals, tokenized equities, and real-share trading. In 2026, crypto exchanges processed nearly $1T year-to-date across RWA perpetuals, with Binance accounting for 60.9% of total volume.

Full report from @CoinDesk Research, supported by @Gate: coindesk.com/research/cex-v…

4/ RWA perps moved against the trend, rising 10.4% to a record high of $211B. DEX futures also bucked the broader decline, rising 7.64% to $596B; the first increase in seven months. Full exchange rankings and breakdowns in the May 2026 Exchange Review.

3/ Derivatives' share of total activity rose to 78.2%; its highest since September 2023, as spot fell faster than derivatives. Open interest rose 2.55% to $108B, with Binance (22.6%), BitMEX (11.1%), and Gate (10.8%) the three largest retail exchanges by OI.

2/ The market share picture was more interesting. Gate and OKX each gained 0.66% in spot market share in May; the largest gains of any exchange tracked. Binance held its lead at 25.9%. BingX saw the sharpest decline, falling 0.96 percentage points to 1.46%.

1/May's Exchange Review, supported by @Gate, tracks a fourth consecutive monthly decline in crypto exchange activity. Combined spot and derivatives fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest level since September 2024. Spot volumes hit $963B; the weakest monthly total since October 2023.🧵

The stablecoin market cap hit a new all-time high of $320B; its fourth consecutive monthly expansion. The total market cap of tokenized real-world assets reached $28.9B; a new record and the tenth straight monthly gain. Both milestones came as broader digital asset prices trended lower.

Inside this structural shift, RLUSD crossed $1B in market cap in under a year. $1.34B circulating. $43.3B in CEX volume. Already the 4th largest stablecoin by exchange volume. Built on the rails the institutional world is actually using. Full report → coindesk.com/research/the-d…

North America is driving this shift. Not just by activity - but through: • Regulatory clarity • Institutional participation • Financial infrastructure This is where compliant models are gaining traction.

The stablecoin landscape has evolved through 3 phases: Trading infrastructure era (2015 - 2020) DeFi financialization era (2020 - 2024) Institutionalization era (2024 - Present) Stablecoins are now increasingly powering real financial use cases such as cross-border remittances and enterprise payments.

Stablecoins are no longer just a crypto trading tool. In 2025: • Market cap hit $308B (+50% YoY) • On-chain volume reached $33.4T (+74%) We’ve entered the institutionalization era. @Ripple's RLUSD is built for exactly this moment. 👇

Stablecoins are moving from trading tools to core financial infrastructure. North America leads, with 45% of total crypto transaction value in transfers over $10M — signaling institutional-scale flows driving demand for regulated, compliance-first assets. RLUSD is designed for that environment. Read the full report by Coindesk Research: x.com/CoinDesk/statu…

Security infrastructure expanded across wallets (MetaMask, Binance Wallet, Ledger) and Chains (Sui, Monad, HashKey) in H2 2025. GoPlus launched AI Deepscan for AI-powered contract analysis and AgentGuard for real-time AI agent protection. Check out the full report CoinDesk Research, commissioned by @GoPlusSecurity.