Binance "Re-enters" the U.S. Stock Market: TSLA Contract Launch, Will It Bring a New Round of Market Movement?

Original Author: ChandlerZ, Foresight News

Binance has announced that it will launch Tesla (TSLA) perpetual contracts on January 28, with leverage of up to 5x. This contract tracks the price of Tesla Inc. common stock (NASDAQ: TSLA).

This marks Binance's first clear product-based return to the U.S. stock market since it shut down its stock token service in July 2021. The change in product form reflects another cautious yet ambitious probe by the crypto giant into the boundaries of traditional finance under the high wall of compliance.

The Fleeting Experiment of "Equity Tokens"

In April 2021, Binance launched stock tokens, with Tesla as the first underlying asset. The core narrative was to allow users to gain exposure to U.S. stock price fluctuations with a lower barrier to entry and enable fractional trading. In its external messaging at the time, equity tokens were described as tokens tracking the price performance of traditional financial stocks, backed by physical shares.

According to Binance's announcement, the minimum trading size for Tesla stock tokens on Binance was one-hundredth of a share. Each Tesla equity token on Binance represented one share of Tesla stock. Based on Tesla's stock price of $760 at the time, Binance investors could buy in for as low as $7.60. The Tesla equity token trading pair was "TSLA/BUSD," denominated, settled, and collateralized in BUSD. Users were required to pass Level 2 KYC (Level 3 for German users), and users from countries including China, the United States, and Turkey were prohibited from trading.

At that time, Binance chose to collaborate with German financial firm CM Equity AG and Switzerland-based tokenization company Digital Assets AG to develop the listing and trading service for equity tokens. Interestingly, in October 2020, FTX had launched a U.S. stock token trading service, with the partners also being CM-Equity AG and Digital Assets AG.

Following Binance's launch of equity tokens, regulatory reactions were swift and severe. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) took the lead. The Financial Times reported that the FCA had intervened to investigate the product's operational model and applicable regulations. Germany's financial regulator, BaFin, subsequently issued a notice stating it had reasonable suspicion that Binance might be violating securities laws. In the eyes of regulators at the time, if an asset possessed the income and dividend rights of a stock, then regardless of whether it wore the cloak of blockchain or was called a "token," it was essentially a security and must be subject to the strictest securities law jurisdiction.

Amid this regulatory siege, Binance was forced to compromise. On July 16, 2021, just three months after the product launch, Binance announced it would cease support for stock tokens and completely phased out the business by October of the same year. This was seen as a painful defeat following DeFi's frontal charge against TradFi.

From the intersection of business and compliance, the sources of pressure at that time were characteristic. First, stock tokens spanned multiple areas including securities issuance, brokerage distribution, trading venues, and investor protection. A single platform found it difficult to cover the requirements of different jurisdictions with one set of licenses.

Second, investors easily developed expectations of rights regarding tokenized stocks. Details such as voting rights, dividend rights, redemption mechanisms, and custody arrangements, if not clearly communicated, amplified controversy and enforcement risks. Third, global regulation of the crypto industry's outward expansion was in a sensitive phase at the time. Once a platform extended its reach into traditional financial assets, regulatory scrutiny often intensified.

Regulatory Shifts and the Restart of Stock Token Business

Five years later, the market has clearly undergone significant changes. The total market capitalization of tokenized stocks has surpassed $1 billion, growing over 50 times in the past year. Among them, xStock's market cap exceeds $600 million, accounting for 58.3% of the market share. Ondo Global Markets' tokenized stock market cap on BNB Chain has grown rapidly, exceeding $50 million, and combined with Ethereum, they account for 39% of the market share.

Recently, the New York Stock Exchange announced it would seek regulatory approval to allow companies to issue securities in the form of digital tokens. Unlike the NYSE's traditional model, which is only open on weekdays and closes overnight, the new platform will offer "24/7" round-the-clock trading services. Additionally, the platform will support instant settlement and allow investors to fund trades using dollar-pegged stablecoins.

According to Barron's, to support the NYSE's ecosystem, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is collaborating with banks including BNY Mellon and Citigroup to support tokenized deposit operations for its clearinghouse.

Prior to this, against the backdrop of the Trump administration shifting towards more crypto-friendly policies, TradFi has been actively absorbing the technological advantages of DeFi.

As early as September 2025, Nasdaq applied to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), hoping to allow investors to trade tokenized versions of stocks. In the broader asset management field, the Depository Trust Company (DTC), a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), received a no-action letter from the SEC, approving it to provide real-world asset tokenization services in a controlled production environment. DTC expects to begin rolling out this service in the second half of 2026. JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, and State Street have all launched tokenized money market fund projects, allowing clients to hold digital tokens representing fund shares.

Binance's launch of TSLA perpetual contracts, compared to the stock tokens of the past, is closer to traditional derivative exposure. For the platform, this path still narratively points to bringing TradFi assets into the crypto arena. However, from a legal and compliance perspective, it is easier to frame the product within a derivatives framework, reducing direct confrontation with sensitive issues like securities issuance and sales.

Will It Bring a New Market Trend? Signaling Significance Outweighs Capital Variables

Bringing the question back to market trading, TSLA perpetuals are more like a signal. Crypto trading platforms are still seeking new avenues to connect with traditional assets, especially in the more familiar territory of derivatives. Secondly, the narrative of tokenized stocks has not died out in the industry and is being taken over by more compliant entities.

Ultimately, how much premium the market will assign, and whether the crypto market will see an independent trend due to Binance's return to U.S. stock underlyings, depends on whether capital treats it as a new risk vehicle and whether regulators allow this type of product to expand to more regions, more underlying assets, and more leverage levels.

On the positive side, such products can introduce the volatility and event-driven narratives of traditional assets into the crypto arena, enhancing trading choices and capital efficiency, and providing more price anchors for collateralization on-chain balance sheets. On the risk side, the perpetual contract mechanism itself introduces risks related to basis, funding rates, and liquidations during extreme volatility. Traders also bear the compound risks of derivative microstructure.

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