How to buy US stocks on an exchange, using Bybit real stocks as the example (checked November 2026)

Updated November 3, 2026 · 7 min read

This is the last of the four steps: your money is already in USDC, now how do you place the order. It walks through Bybit real stocks step by step, then what Binance does differently, and where tokenized stocks and perpetuals live. Market orders for real stocks only fill in regular US market hours, USDC from a sale takes a trading day to arrive, and cash dividends have 30% US withholding tax taken off first.

1. Three things before you start

First, identity verification has to be done. Bybit real stocks require advanced verification, one step beyond the standard verification for buying crypto. Binance requires completed identity verification, and on your first order you also accept the securities trading terms. If you haven’t done it, go back to the identity verification step.

Second, the money has to be USDC. Bybit real stocks take only USDC. Binance mainly uses USDC and also accepts USDT, BNB and USD1, converting at order time. What you get from P2P is usually USDT, so swap it to USDC inside the exchange with the convert feature.

Third, know which kind you are buying.

2. How to buy real stocks, using Bybit as the example

Bybit real stocks launched on 12 October 2026 with 1000+ US stocks and ETFs. The Mauritius-licensed broker Infra Capital takes the order and the US broker Alpaca executes and holds it. The official help page lists the unavailable regions as the European Economic Area, India, Mauritius and the UAE.

1. Your account must be a Unified Trading Account (UTA). If an older account is still a standard account, upgrade it in account settings. It’s free.
2. Put USDC in the Unified Trading Account. USDC in the funding account moves over with “Transfer”.
3. Open “Trade” at the bottom of the app and choose Stocks under TradFi. The first time in, you read and accept the brokerage terms and risk disclosure, and you may be asked to fill in a W-8BEN form, which non-US persons use for dividend withholding tax. These happen once.
4. Search the ticker, for example AAPL, open it and choose “Buy”. You can buy by amount, minimum 5 USDC, and stocks that support fractional shares let you buy a fraction of a share. You can also buy by number of shares. Stocks that don’t support fractions show a notice and only sell whole shares.
5. Choose the order type. A market order only fills in regular US hours, 9:30 to 16:00 Eastern time, and a market order placed after the close queues until the next open. A limit order can have “24-hour trading” ticked to fill in pre-market, post-market and overnight sessions. “Day” is the easiest time in force: anything unfilled is cancelled automatically at 20:00 Eastern. GTC keeps the order live for up to 90 days.
6. Confirm. Funds are reserved for the order amount when you place it, and after the fill the difference against the actual average price is refunded or charged. An order can’t be edited after submission, so cancel and place a new one.

After the fill, the Stocks holdings page shows your share count, average price and unrealised profit or loss. The fee is zero commission plus a 0.1% service fee, with a minimum of 0.5 USDC on orders under 500 USDC, reserved at placement and charged at execution.

Selling goes the same way, choosing “Sell”. The USDC doesn’t arrive straight away. Proceeds sit in the Stocks account first and move back to the Unified Trading Account after T+1 trading day settlement.

3. What Binance does differently

Binance real stocks launched on 1 June 2026 with 7000+ stocks. The ADGM-licensed broker Nest Trading takes the order, and Alpaca again executes and holds it. The flow is the same as Bybit: open the stocks entry, accept the terms, search the ticker, place the order. A few things differ.

• What you pay with. Mainly USDC, with USDT, BNB and USD1 also accepted and converted at order time.
• Fees. Zero commission plus a platform fee. The help centre gives a base rate of at least 0.35 dollars on orders of 350 dollars or less and a 0.1% spread above that. The landing page currently shows a promotional 0.17 dollars and 0.05%, so go by the order screen. At the promotional rate small orders cost half of Bybit’s; at the base rate the two are about even.
• Trading sessions. When ordering you can pick regular hours, extended hours (adding pre-market and post-market) or 24-hour (adding overnight). Only some stocks support 24-hour trading.
• Proceeds from a sale. USDC goes to the funding account.
• Available regions. There is no published list, only that US persons can’t use it and the rest is “subject to permitted regions”. Sign up and see whether the stocks entry shows in the app.

OKX has no real stocks right now, only the two kinds below.

4. How to buy tokenized stocks

Tokenized stocks live in the spot market and you buy them like any coin: search the ticker, choose market or limit, enter the quantity, confirm. The only difference is how the ticker is written.

• Binance bStocks add a B after the ticker, for example NVDAB/USDT or TSLAB/USDT, with about 100 listed. If you hold real stocks you can convert them 1:1 to bStocks for free.
• OKX puts an X in front, for example XAAPL/USDT or XTSLA/USDT. Your first order asks you to read the risk disclosure, and the app needs to be on the latest version.
• Bybit xStocks add an X after the ticker, for example TSLAX/USDT, under the xStocks category in spot. The fee is a separate tier at 0.2%, and users in Vietnam and Pakistan can’t use it.

All three trade around the clock. When the US market is closed, the price is held up by market makers and can drift from the real share price, so use limit orders on weekends and after hours, not market orders. Dividends and splits don’t change your token count. They show up through a “multiplier”, and the trading page shows the current multiplier and its history.

5. Where stock perpetuals live

On all three they’re in the futures section, and searching the ticker finds them, for example TSLAUSDT. This site doesn’t teach perpetuals. One sentence: they hold no stock, under leverage you can lose your entire deposit, and on weekends with the US market closed the price is held by the exchange’s own mechanism and may gap at the open. The three exchanges’ leverage caps and funding fees are in section 5 of the exchange comparison .

6. After you buy

Real stocks sit in a customer account at the exchange’s partner broker. You are the beneficial owner, but you can’t transfer the stock to your own account at another broker, and you can’t withdraw it on-chain. The only way out is to sell and take back USDC. bStocks and xStocks can be withdrawn on-chain, which is one practical difference between tokenized and real stocks.

Cash dividends on US stocks have 30% US withholding tax taken off first, and the rest arrives as USDC. Stock dividends add shares pro rata, and splits adjust automatically. Your own country’s tax is separate, and the country pages cover it.

To turn USDC from a sale back into local currency, post a sell ad on the P2P market, the reverse of depositing. The P2P rules are in section 4 of each country page.

7. FAQ