Binance has opened its Capital Connect investment marketplace to eligible individual users for the first time, giving wealthy clients access to professionally managed strategies previously reserved for institutional investors.
Summary
- Binance has opened Capital Connect to eligible individuals, including investors holding at least $1 million in assets.
- Capital Connect had 212 portfolios from 77 professional trading teams in September, up from 106 portfolios and 35 teams in May.
- Investors can compare standardized performance data and allocate funds to strategies without trading teams creating separate fund vehicles.
- Capital Connect started with crypto only strategies, but professional trading teams have since incorporated traditional financial instruments.
CNBC reported that the cryptocurrency exchange is expanding access as it works to attract high-net-worth clients seeking professionally managed portfolios across crypto and traditional financial markets.
Individual investors can qualify by holding at least $1 million in assets, while Binance’s updated eligibility rules provide several routes into the platform. KYC-verified individuals can qualify by reaching VIP 3 or above, holding at least $1 million on Binance, or submitting proof of an equivalent balance held externally for review. Access remains limited to permitted jurisdictions.
Individual investors “want access to Capital Connect,” Catherine Chen, head of Binance VIP and institutional, told CNBC. “This is really us answering their demand.”
The change extends a platform Binance initially built for professional trading teams and institutional investors, placing individual high-net-worth clients alongside entities already using the marketplace to compare strategies and allocate capital.
Binance Capital Connect opens to individual investors
Capital Connect had 212 portfolios managed by 77 professional trading teams as of September, according to figures provided by Binance. That compares with 106 portfolios and 35 teams in May, meaning the number of listed portfolios has doubled within roughly four months while the number of participating teams has more than doubled.
Investors can compare trading teams using standardized performance information and select strategies through the marketplace. Binance said qualified investors have focused heavily on the teams’ track records and comparable performance data when deciding where to allocate funds.
Trading teams, meanwhile, tend to spend their time on research and developing investment strategies instead of fund administration and operational work, according to the company.
Capital Connect runs on Binance’s Portfolio Account infrastructure, which handles functions such as management and performance fees, subscriptions, redemptions, net asset value reporting and risk metrics. Trading teams remain responsible for executing their investment strategies.
Chen compared the arrangement with separately managed accounts used in traditional finance because investors can allocate capital to a trading strategy without requiring the manager to create a separate investment fund.
Assets held through a Portfolio Account cannot be transferred or withdrawn by trading teams to external accounts. Binance’s current Capital Connect rules state that funds can move only between the Portfolio Account and its assigned trading sub-accounts, leaving the assets in Binance custody.
Publicly listed trading teams must complete Binance’s KYB verification, maintain more than 30 days of active Portfolio Account trading history and hold a valid asset management or portfolio management license, or a recognized regulatory exemption.
Binance says it does not guarantee portfolio performance, returns or capital preservation, and investments made through Capital Connect remain at the investor’s risk.
Professional strategies move beyond crypto
The investment choices available through Capital Connect are no longer confined to digital assets.
Capital Connect began with crypto-only strategies, but Chen said more trading teams have incorporated traditional financial instruments. Participants range from conventional asset managers to crypto-native quantitative trading firms, with some operating across both markets.
The platform currently supports categories including market-neutral, statistical arbitrage, directional, long-short and TradFi multi-strategy portfolios.
The expansion fits with Binance’s recent push to place traditional financial products alongside its cryptocurrency business. crypto.news previously reported in August that the exchange launched five stock perpetuals tied to U.S. stocks and leveraged exchange-traded funds, including Trump Media and Moderna.
Those contracts offered up to 20x leverage and round-the-clock trading, with access depending on the user’s location and applicable restrictions.
A month earlier, Binance Futures introduced perpetual contracts linked to the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF and two long-duration U.S. Treasury products. BITOUSDT, TMFUSDT and TBTUSDT were launched with up to 25x leverage and 24-hour trading.
The exchange had started expanding its TradFi perpetual lineup months earlier. In May, it added contracts tied to companies including Oracle, Disney, Uber, Cisco and Home Depot, with the products settled in USDT through its futures platform.
Binance builds out stocks and tokenized assets
Binance’s traditional finance expansion has moved beyond derivatives into direct and tokenized equity products.
The exchange launched bStocks in June, allowing eligible users to convert supported U.S. equity holdings into tokenized assets backed 1:1 by underlying securities. The initial lineup included Nvidia, Tesla, Circle, Micron and Sandisk, with the tokens designed for round-the-clock trading and potential use in self-custody wallets and decentralized finance applications.
By August, the value of bStocks had reached roughly $610.6 million, moving the Binance product ahead of xStocks to become the second-largest tokenized stock issuer in the dataset tracked by Token Terminal. Ondo Finance remained ahead at the time.
Binance has been building a direct stock business in parallel. Its Direct Stocks service crossed $1 billion in user-held U.S. equities within 30 days of launching in June, while trading volume approached $3 billion during the same period. Eligible users were given access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs through the Binance app.
The exchange moved further into conventional securities products this month by launching U.S. stock and ETF options for eligible users. The initial offering allows clients to buy calls and puts, with exercised positions settling into underlying shares held through Alpaca Securities.
Capital Connect now gives high-net-worth individuals another route into Binance’s expanding investment business, but through portfolios run by professional trading teams instead of individual stock, derivatives or tokenized equity trades.
