Gen Z Lifted ETFs to 25% of Its Equity Volume in August

Gen Z traders are putting more money into ETFs on Binance, with such funds accounting for 25% of their equity trading volume in early August, up from 14.6% in June.

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) took 25.0% of Gen Z equity trading volume on Binance in the first days of August, up from 14.6% in June.

According to a Binance Research report published on August 12, millennials directed 9.5% of their early-August equity volume to the same instruments. Unleveraged ETFs drew 18.5% of Gen Z net equity inflow in June and 21.9% in July, while the single-stock share fell from 77.0% to 74.2%.

Report author Lim Kim Thye cautioned that “two months is not enough to establish a trend.”

The Money That Stayed

Binance opened direct stock trading in June 2026, and its tokenized US equities reached $100 million in assets under management within two weeks of launch, with 47% of trading activity outside regular US market hours.

Gen Z’s total net equity deployment fell 17.4% in July. Net inflow to unleveraged ETFs slipped 2.0% over the same period, against 20.4% for single stocks and 28.5% for leveraged products.

Interestingly, Gen Z was the only cohort whose ETF holder base grew, rising 2.9%, while Millennials fell 4.5% and Gen X fell 5.9%. Its ETF buyers traded the least in July at 7.9 times against 10.3 for Millennials. Across the sample, ETF buyers held 1.4 to 1.6 fund symbols each, and in the June cohort, positions averaged 10 to 14 days, with 36% to 45% still open at the snapshot.

Ticket sizes ran in the same direction. The largest average buys in direct equities went to the dividend ETF SCHD at $16,567 per trade and Broadcom (AVGO) at $12,370, while the smallest went to the best-known names, Tesla (TSLA) at $633 and Nvidia (NVDA) at $514 in stocks.

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Almost No Leverage

Leveraged and inverse ETFs made up 9.25% of Gen Z direct-equity turnover in July but 3.93% of net monthly inflow, a share that has fallen from 4.55% in June to 2.65% in the opening days of August. “Gen Z does not appear to be committing capital to leveraged exposure,” the report stated.

But 88.2% of Gen Z accounts recorded no leveraged or inverse activity in TradFi-Perps, against 84.5% of Millennials and 85.9% of Gen X. In direct equities, the figure is 96.5%, though Baby Boomers lead every product and reach 98.9% there.

Gen Z averages 13 trades a month on perpetuals against 17 for Millennials, and 22% of its direct-equity accounts have never placed a sell order, behind Millennials at 30%.