Gen Z Investors Favor ETFs and Lower Leverage on Binance

Binance Research data shows Gen Z investors are becoming more cautious, despite many entering financial markets through crypto platforms. Among Binance users, Gen Z had the lowest turnover in direct equities, tokenised stocks and traditional-finance perpetual futures. ETF activity increased notably. ETFs accounted for 25% of Gen Z direct-equity trading volume in early August, up from 14.6% in June. Unleveraged ETFs represented 18.5% and 21.9% of Gen Z equity net inflows in June and July. By contrast, overall equity inflows fell 20.4% in July, while leveraged-product inflows declined 28.5%. Gen Z was the only working-age group to expand its ETF-holder base in July, rising 2.9%. About 76% of tokenised-stock accounts and 77% of direct-equity accounts were net buyers. Around 22% of direct-equity accounts had never placed a sell order. Average large purchases included SCHD at $16,567 and Broadcom at $12,370, while Tesla and Nvidia attracted smaller average purchases in tokenised stocks. Leverage use was limited. Gen Z averaged 13 traditional-finance perpetual-futures trades per month, below millennials at 17 and baby boomers at 19. Only 14% of accounts met the high-frequency trading threshold, and nearly 99% of tokenised-stock accounts avoided leveraged or inverse products. The findings suggest that Gen Z investors use Binance as an accessible route to US equities, particularly in emerging markets. They appear to reserve leverage for short-term speculation while using ETFs and stocks for longer-term accumulation. For crypto traders, the data points to steady demand for tokenised equities and diversified products rather than a broad increase in high-risk leverage. Gen Z investors are therefore not automatically adopting extreme-risk strategies simply because they use a crypto platform.