Much like fashion trends that eventually rescue embarrassing pieces from the back of the closet, investing frequently circles back to old ideas. While the millennial-era crypto boom delivered yield-bearing dog coins and various food-themed financial tools, Gen Z has arrived in low-rise JNCO jeans, vintage digicams, and, in certain market sectors, with a parental appetite for conventional assets.
Just as low-rise denim has returned, their tolerance for portfolio risk appears notably low.
An August 12 report from Binance Research examined how different generations engage with the exchange’s direct equities, tokenized bStocks, and TradFi perpetuals. The data showed that younger users were not the ones constantly chasing leverage or flipping positions. Across all three products, working-age Gen Z users maintained the lowest turnover rates. The findings track Binance users over a brief window, noting that its direct-equity product only reached scale in June 2026.
Surprisingly, the most traditional, conservative, and straightforward portfolios within crypto might actually belong to zoomers.
A rebellion with an expense ratio
This generational shift is most visible in exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
During the first few days of August, ETFs represented 25% of Gen Z’s direct-equity trading volume, up from 14.6% in June. By comparison, millennials allocated just 9.5% to ETFs in early August, meaning the younger demographic directed more than twice as much equity trading toward funds.
The capital flowing into these funds reveals an even sharper contrast. Unleveraged ETFs drew 18.5% of Gen Z’s net equity inflows in June and 21.9% in July, whereas allocations to individual stocks dropped from 77% to 74.2%.
Although July was a slower month for overall Gen Z equity deployment—with net investments sliding 17.4%—unleveraged ETF inflows held steady, dipping a mere 2%. Conversely, single-stock inflows dropped 20.4%, and leveraged products fell 28.5%.
Gen Z was also the sole cohort in Binance’s dataset to experience growth in its ETF holder base during July, registering a 2.9% increase while millennial ETF holders fell 4.5% and Gen X declined 5.9%.
This demonstrates that young traders aren’t simply dabbling in standard market funds between more speculative trades. When Gen Z scaled back, ETFs remained the core holdings they continued to fund.
While these individual investments don’t mirror a regional pension fund’s blueprint, they are far from pure lottery-ticket speculations.
Among Gen Z accounts that exclusively bought assets without selling, the largest average direct-equity purchase went to Schwab’s US Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) at $16,567 per trade, followed by Broadcom at $12,370. Overall portfolios leaned heavily into semiconductors and artificial intelligence, though smaller average purchases touched retail favorites like Tesla at $633 and Nvidia at $514 in bStocks.
In short, Gen Z still embraces technology and AI, but their larger commitments are bypassing the assets with the loudest cult followings.
Holding patterns tell a similar story. Approximately 22% of Gen Z direct-equity accounts featured in the report had never executed a sell order, outperforming Gen X at 19% and Baby Boomers at 9%. Millennials led this specific category at 30%, giving them a win against stereotypes of financial recklessness.
When the metric shifts from “never sold” to net accumulation, however, Gen Z takes the lead.
Roughly 76% of Gen Z bStocks accounts were net accumulators, marking the highest proportion of any generation and sitting nine percentage points above millennials. In direct equities, 77% were accumulating, compared to 74% for Gen X and 68% for Baby Boomers.
They are not only trading less; on the parts of the Binance platform built to mirror long-term ownership rather than short-term derivative plays, they are consistently adding to their positions.
Perps are for trading and ETFs are for keeping
This behavior becomes unexpected when examining perpetual contracts. Given that Gen Z came of age alongside cryptocurrency, they should theoretically be entirely comfortable with perps. While they use them, they engage far less aggressively than older generations.
The average Gen Z account executed 13 TradFi-perpetual trades per month, compared to 17 for millennials, 16.5 for Gen X, and 19 for Baby Boomers. Only 14% of Gen Z perpetual accounts qualified as high-frequency traders, trailing millennials and Gen X at 18% and even boomers at 16%.
This creates the humorous scenario where a 22-year-old trading equities via a crypto platform places fewer perpetual trades than an older generation of retail investors.
A parallel trend appeared in leveraged and inverse ETF usage. Some 88.2% of Gen Z TradFi-perpetual accounts recorded zero activity in leveraged or inverse ETFs, outpacing millennials at 84.5% and Gen X at 85.9%. In bStocks, 98.9% of Gen Z accounts bypassed these products, exceeding the caution of other working-age groups.
Boomers remain the most conservative overall, holding the highest share of accounts avoiding leveraged and inverse products—including 98.9% in direct equities versus 96.5% for Gen Z.
While zoomers have not turned into literal boomers, their behavior among non-retired cohorts runs surprisingly parallel.
The more compelling distinction lies between what Gen Z trades and where they permanently park capital.
Leveraged and inverse ETFs accounted for 9.25% of Gen Z’s direct-equity turnover in July, yet represented only 3.93% of net inflows. By early August, their share of net inflows shrank further to 2.65%.
This suggests leverage is being treated as intended: as a short-term positioning tool rather than a permanent home for capital.
TradFi perpetuals exhibit a similar trend. Roughly 60% of Gen Z accounts were net buyers—the highest of any age group—yet their net flow accounted for less than 1% of gross volume. Traders opened and closed positions rapidly, leaving very little capital behind.
Equities tell a completely different story. Gen Z’s direct-equity net flow ratio reached 26.5%, with average net inflows hitting $1,898 per account.
This divide explains why asking whether young investors use perpetuals misses the broader picture. They do utilize them, but their sustained capital flows elsewhere.
Earlier Binance research on emerging investors offers a logical explanation: Gen Z accounts for roughly 44% of Binance’s direct-stock and bStocks users, and 45% of TradFi-perp users, making them the largest cohort in direct stocks and bStocks while matching millennials in TradFi perpetuals. More than 90% of TradFi users across all generations reside in emerging markets, where securing access to U.S. securities through traditional domestic brokers can prove exceedingly difficult.
For many of these users, a crypto exchange functions as the most accessible brokerage they have ever used.
They are familiar with the interface, their accounts are funded, fractional shares are available, and markets can be accessed outside standard U.S. trading hours. Binance reported that 13% of all Direct Stocks users were Gen Z customers residing in emerging markets with fewer than $2,000 in equity assets.
This context makes their behavior much clearer. The platform does not need to convert every young customer into a perpetual trader because it simultaneously serves as a channel for purchasing ordinary investments.
We used to put the money in a pickle
The contrast is amusing because prior crypto cycles birthed financial products that defied conventional standards entirely.
Pickle Finance introduced Jars and Farms, featuring mechanisms that compounded returns across protocols and rewarded users for depositing resulting tokens. These concepts had sound financial underpinnings, even if their vocabulary sounded like a pension fund formulated during a supermarket mishap.
Similarly, ShibaSwap utilized terms like “Bury” for staking tokens, featuring digital assets named SHIB, LEASH, and BONE. The crypto industry routinely took complex financial activities and assigned them instructions fit for an enthusiastic dog.
A decade of such innovations fostered the assumption that individuals who do not remember a world before Dogecoin would embrace financial chaos even more readily.
Instead, Binance data indicates that younger users are directing an expanding share of equity capital into unleveraged ETFs, trading less frequently than millennials and Gen X, and allocating minimal net investment to leveraged exposure.
This does not mean they have abandoned crypto. A 2023 FINRA Foundation and CFA Institute survey revealed that 55% of U.S. Gen Z investors owned cryptocurrency, while CryptoSlate has previously documented strong retail crypto interest among young Americans.
A more fascinating takeaway is that utilizing cryptocurrency and seeking maximum financial risk were never synonymous preferences.
For individuals who encountered finance through an exchange app, Binance doesn’t necessarily feel like a rebellious alternative to a traditional brokerage. It is simply the financial interface they know best. Once stocks and ETFs became available within that ecosystem, their investment preferences did not have to reflect the chaotic branding surrounding early crypto culture.
This is where Gen Z diverges from both millennials and boomers.
They are not constructing textbook retirement portfolios. Semiconductor exposure, AI stocks, tokenized equities, and round-the-clock markets hardly mimic 1990s wealth management. Yet they engage with these products via a surprisingly old-fashioned instinct: buy an asset, hold onto more than you sell, and avoid making every single position dependent on leverage.
Crypto spent years making finance unconventional to attract younger demographics. Ultimately, those young customers adopted the interface while discarding some of the eccentricity.
Just as fashion revives low-rise denim, finance is seeing the return of a traditional ambition: owning an asset, leaving it alone for a while, and hoping it performs reasonably well. There is certainly enough room in the budget for both.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Gen Z investing differently than older generations on crypto platforms?
According to Binance Research data, Gen Z users exhibit the lowest turnover rates among working-age cohorts and are shifting a higher percentage of their equity trading into unleveraged ETFs compared to millennials and Gen X.
Are younger investors avoiding riskier products entirely?
No, Gen Z still utilizes leveraged products and perpetual contracts, but they treat them as short-term trading positions rather than long-term capital parking spots. Their persistent capital flows heavily into unleveraged equities and ETFs.
Why are young investors using crypto exchanges for traditional stocks?
More than 90% of TradFi users on the platform are based in emerging markets, where gaining access to U.S. securities through standard domestic brokers can be difficult. For these users, a familiar crypto app offers an accessible brokerage interface with fractional shares and extended trading hours.
Do Gen Z traders hold onto their investments longer?
Yes, holding behaviors show high accumulation rates. Approximately 76% of Gen Z bStocks accounts and 77% of direct-equity accounts were net accumulators, outpacing older generations in consistently adding to their positions rather than selling.
