Binance vs OKX vs Bybit for US stocks (checked November 2026)
If you want real shares, use Binance or Bybit. If you want to trade around the clock and don't care about dividends, all three sell tokenized stocks. If you want leverage, all three run stock perpetuals. Readers in Vietnam and Pakistan: Bybit's xStocks are closed to you, but Bybit's real stocks are not. Every number here comes from the three official sites, and the check date sits under each table.
US stocks on each exchange, at a glance
| Binance | OKX | Bybit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real sharesYou own the stock | Yes7,000+ stocks and ETFs from $5, zero commission plus a platform fee; orders via ADGM broker Nest Trading, custody at Alpaca | NoOKXICE for the US is not live yet; no real stocks elsewhere | Yes1,000+ stocks and ETFs from 5 USDC, zero commission plus a 0.1% service fee; executed and held by Alpaca |
| Tokenized stocksA token that tracks the price | bStocksAbout 100 tokens issued by an ADGM special-purpose vehicle, backed 1:1 and redeemable for the shares | xStocks40+ xStocks on spot, only in Asia, CIS, MENA and Türkiye; Ondo tokens also available in OKX Wallet | xStocksIssued by Backed, backed 1:1, spot 24/7; not available to users in Vietnam or Pakistan |
| Stock perpetualsLeverage, no ownership | YesAbout 180 contracts, settled in USDT, up to 10x | YesNVIDIA, Apple, QQQ and more, settled in USDT, up to 5x | Yes200+ contracts, settled in USDT, up to 100x |
| Spot trading fee | 0.1% | 0.08% / 0.1% | 0.1% |
Official status
| Country | Binance | OKX | Bybit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nigeria | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 |
| Pakistan | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 |
| Vietnam | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 | Not listed as restricted2026-11-02 |
1. The short version
The two tables above are this site’s source of truth: which kind of US stock each exchange sells, and where the three countries stand on each official restricted list. This section is about how to turn that into a decision.
If you just want to buy a few stocks and hold them, go to Binance or Bybit and buy real stocks. Both route your order to Alpaca, a licensed US broker, which executes it and holds the shares. You own real shares and you get dividends. OKX does not have this product yet.
If you want to trade whenever you like, weekends included, all three sell tokenized stocks that never stop trading. The price is no dividends, no voting rights, and the longest list of excluded regions of any product on this page.
If you want leverage for short-term trades, all three run stock perpetual futures. My advice for beginners is to stay away. A perpetual holds no stock, and with leverage you can lose your entire deposit.
Readers in Vietnam or Pakistan should read section 6 twice. Bybit’s xStocks are officially closed to you, but neither Vietnam nor Pakistan appears on the exclusion lists for Bybit’s real stocks or its perpetuals.
2. What the three kinds of “US stock” actually are
| Real stocks | Tokenized stocks | Stock perpetuals | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | Real shares held at a US broker | A token that tracks the share price; the issuer says it holds the stock 1:1 | A contract. You hold nothing |
| Dividends | Yes | Usually no; a few products reflect them through price adjustments | No |
| Trading hours | US market hours, some with 24-hour trading Monday to Friday | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Leverage | No | No | Yes |
| Main risk | The broker and custody chain | Issuer credit, price de-pegging | Liquidation, funding fees |
3. Real stocks: Binance vs Bybit
| Binance | Bybit | |
|---|---|---|
| Launched | 1 June 2026 | 12 October 2026 |
| Available | 7000+ US stocks and ETFs | 1000+ US stocks and ETFs |
| Order flow and custody | Nest Trading, an ADGM-licensed broker, takes the order; Alpaca executes and holds | Infra Capital, a Mauritius-licensed broker, takes the order; Alpaca executes and holds |
| Commission | Zero | Zero |
| Other fees | Platform fee. Base rate: orders under 350 USD pay at least 0.35 USD, orders over 350 USD pay a 0.1% spread. The landing page currently shows a promotional 0.17 USD and 0.05%, so go by the order screen | Service fee 0.1%, with a 0.5 USDC minimum on orders under 500 USDC |
| Minimum | 5 USD, fractional shares supported | 5 USDC, fractional shares supported |
| Pay with | Mainly USDC, also BNB, USDT and USD1 | USDC |
| Trading hours | 24 hours Monday to Friday (selected stocks), including pre- and post-market | 24 hours Monday to Friday, including pre-market, post-market and overnight |
| Dividends and splits | Yes, handled by Alpaca | Yes, cash dividends credited as USDC |
| Voting rights | Not mentioned officially | Not yet; Bybit says a later phase |
| KYC | Required | Advanced KYC required |
| Not available in | US persons excluded; otherwise “permitted regions only” with no published list | Restricted-list countries, the European Economic Area, India, Mauritius and the UAE, with South Africa pending |
The two setups are almost identical: you place the order on the exchange, and the account opening, execution and custody all happen at Alpaca in the US. The differences are the fee formula and the front door. Binance’s stock fee now has two official figures: the help centre gives a base rate of at least 0.35 USD under 350 USD and a 0.1% spread above, while the landing page shows a promotional 0.17 USD and 0.05%. At the promotional rate Binance is friendlier for small frequent buys and Bybit’s 0.1% is double Binance’s spread on large orders; at the base rate the two are about even. Both mention that some instruments, ADRs for example, may carry extra fees, so trust what the order screen shows you.
One more thing. On 30 October 2026 Binance suffered the largest theft in crypto history. It began restoring withdrawals in phases from 1 November and says it has covered 95% of user losses. What was stolen was crypto in exchange wallets; real stocks are held at Alpaca on a separate set of books. None of this changes the conclusion above. It is only a reminder: don’t leave idle USDC sitting on any exchange for long.
4. Tokenized stocks: bStocks and xStocks
| Binance bStocks | OKX xStocks | Bybit xStocks | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issuer | BTECH Holdings, a special-purpose vehicle registered in ADGM | Backed Assets (Jersey) | Backed Assets (Jersey) |
| Launched | 11 June 2026 | 16 July 2026 | Rolled out since 2025 |
| Count | About 100 | 40+ | See announcements |
| 1:1 backing | Yes, and Binance says they can be redeemed for real shares | Yes | Yes |
| Dividends | Not stated | No shareholder rights | No dividends or voting; corporate actions show up through an on-chain multiplier |
| Usable as collateral | Yes, as futures margin at up to 5x | No | No |
| Fees | Spot fee schedule | Spot fee schedule | Separate tier: 0.2% for regular users |
| Available in | “Permitted regions” only, no published list; the UAE is open | Asia, CIS, Middle East and North Africa, Turkey | More than 60 countries and regions excluded, including Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Russia and the European Economic Area |
OKX also lists on-chain tokenized stocks issued by Ondo inside the DEX of its OKX Wallet, from 20 USD, traded on-chain with gas fees. That is a separate thing from exchange spot trading, so don’t mix the two up.
5. Stock perpetual futures
| Binance | OKX | Bybit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launched | January 2026, starting with Tesla | 4 March 2026 | From April 2026 |
| Contracts | About 180 | Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, QQQ, SPY and more, still growing | 200+ |
| Max leverage | 10x | 5x | 100x (dynamic risk limits) |
| Settlement | USDT | USDT | USDT |
| Funding | Every 8 hours | Every 8 hours | Every 8 hours |
| Weekends | 24/7, index anchored to the last close | 24/7, index anchored to the last close with a 10% band | 24/7 |
| Not available in | Whatever the app shows | Whatever the app shows | European Economic Area and others |
6. Vietnam, Nigeria, Pakistan: what the official lists say
The second table above answers one question only: is this country on the exchange’s officially published restricted list. Here is what the three lists said when we checked:
- Bybit (updated 16 October 2026): the US, mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Uzbekistan, Crimea and nearby regions, Sudan, Syria. Vietnam, Nigeria and Pakistan are not on it.
- OKX (updated 8 July 2026): Afghanistan, Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, Iran, India, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, North Korea, Syria, Crimea and nearby regions, some US jurisdictions, Uzbekistan. None of the three countries is on it.
- Binance: the terms of service do not list countries one by one. They only say “restricted jurisdictions”.
The list is not the whole story. A few other things decide whether you can actually buy.
Product-level restrictions are tighter than account-level ones. Bybit’s xStocks officially exclude Vietnam and Pakistan, and Bybit’s real stocks exclude the European Economic Area, India, Mauritius and the UAE. OKX’s xStocks are only open to Asia, CIS, Middle East and North Africa, and Turkey, which leaves Nigeria out. Binance’s real stocks and bStocks have no published list of regions, so the only way to know is to sign up and see whether the entry point appears in your app. That is why our country pages only report what the official lists say and never promise that your account will open.
Local law is another layer. Since 1 September 2026, trading crypto assets in Vietnam on a platform without a Ministry of Finance licence can be fined, up to 50,000,000 VND for an individual, and none of the three exchanges holds a Vietnamese licence today. Nigeria’s SEC requires foreign exchanges to register, and Binance stopped all naira services in March 2024. Pakistan licenses exchanges through PVARA from 2026; Binance received a no-objection certificate in December 2025, and Bybit has applied.
And the lists change. All three reserve the right to add or remove countries at any time. We check once a month and print the date under the table.
7. Spot fees and referral rebates
| Binance | OKX | Bybit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spot maker / taker | 0.1% / 0.1%, or 0.075% when paying with BNB | 0.08% / 0.1% | 0.1% / 0.1% |
| Futures maker / taker | See the fee page | 0.02% / 0.05% | See the fee page |
| What a referral code gets you | The referrer can share part of their spot commission with you, until you reach VIP 3 | Whatever reward the referral page shows | New-user task rewards, starting from a 100 USD deposit |
| Can you add it after signing up? | Yes, within 30 days and only if the account has no deposits or trades | No, it has to go in at sign-up | Yes, once within 14 days on the account page; this site’s code is an affiliate code, so it qualifies |
Sign up with this site’s codes and Binance and OKX rebate up to 20% of your fees. The referrer sets the rate and can change it, so go by what the sign-up page shows. Bybit gives new-user rewards instead, with the conditions set out in its rewards hub.
8. Funding your account
All three support card purchases, P2P, and bank transfers in some countries. Which of those works in your country is spelled out on each official help page: Binance , OKX , Bybit . Before buying US stocks you need to convert into USDC (Binance also takes BNB and USDT). Each country page goes into the local details.
9. How this page was checked
- Binance: the fee notes on the stocks landing page, the official press releases of 1 June and 15 October 2026, the stock perpetuals explainer on Binance Square, the fee page, and the referral programme FAQ.
- OKX: the stock perpetuals launch announcement (4 March 2026), the Stock Perpetuals FAQ, the Tokenized stocks FAQ, the Risk & Compliance Disclosure, the global fee framework announcement, and the Referral Program FAQ; the xStocks launch details come from the issuer partner’s press release of 16 July 2026.
- Bybit: Introduction to Bybit Stocks, FAQ — xStocks on Bybit, Stocks comparison, Service Restricted Countries, the spot fee page, the Referral Program FAQ, and the perpetuals press release of 8 May 2026.
- National rules: coverage of Vietnam’s Decree 284/2026, of Nigeria’s SEC and Binance’s naira shutdown notice, and of Pakistan’s PVARA.
If you spot a mistake, email the address on the About page. We check it, fix it and move the “updated” date.