Key takeaways

  • In this review of research over the month, it is considered that data on tokenized stocks, stablecoin liquidity, and wallet security reveal the development of market infrastructure.

  • The results show that tokenized stocks are gaining popularity; more and more trading occurs outside regular trading hours, and stablecoin liquidity is concentrated on Binance.

  • Taken together, they indicate that Binance is playing an increasingly significant role in trading, providing liquidity, and storing assets in a market that is operating around the clock.

Every month, research teams at crypto companies publish results that most people never see—they’re hidden in reports and dashboards designed for analysts rather than everyday users. In August 2026, four studies came out that you should know about: DeFiLlama—on trading tokenized stocks outside market hours; CryptoQuant—on stablecoin reserves; The Block—on wallet security; and CoinDesk—on capital inflows into real-world assets.

Each of these findings on its own is narrow and technical. Together, they point to a broader trend: liquidity, trading activity, and infrastructure are increasingly concentrating on fewer venues. This affects where trades are executed, how capital moves during periods of volatility, and how users secure the assets they hold.

Read on to find out what each report showed and what overall conclusions these results lead to.

DeFiLlama: trading tokenized stocks is concentrated outside market hours

DeFiLlama analyzed data on hourly trading volumes across six weeks on major tokenized stocks venues to examine activity outside traditional U.S. market hours. The study found that more than half of weekday trading volume occurs during time outside the main trading session. Binance holds leading positions both during U.S. market hours and outside them, with its share of activity increasing after traditional markets close.

Chart 1. Share of trading volume in tokenized stocks: comparing market hours, weekday after-hours, and weekends

This difference is partly explained by the structure of tokenized stocks venues. Some of them issue and redeem based on actual trades in underlying U.S. markets, so they depend on traditional market hours. Others rely on pre-funded liquidity pools, which may become less deep outside market hours or offer a more limited selection of assets on weekends. bStocks (tokenized securities on Binance), unlike them, trade through the Binance order book 24/7. According to DeFiLlama, this continuous liquidity can strengthen Binance’s role in setting prices for tokenized stocks when traditional markets and other venues are less active.

CryptoQuant: stablecoin reserves have become concentrated

Stablecoins held on exchanges reflect available trading capital.

According to CryptoQuant, exchange stablecoin reserves fell by roughly 20% from the peak at the end of 2025—down to about $64 billion—mainly due to USDT.

Lower reserves may indicate a calmer market. The same was true in 2022, before reserves began rising again during the subsequent recovery. This time, what stands out is where exactly the remaining capital is concentrated.

Among all stablecoins held on centralized exchanges, a little more than two-thirds is accounted for by Binance—at the end of last year, that figure was in the range of just over 60%. CryptoQuant data also suggests that stablecoin balances on Binance have declined less than across the overall exchange market. As a result, a significant share of stablecoin liquidity that is ready to trade is currently concentrated on Binance, strengthening its role as the main venue for deploying capital when market activity picks up.

The Block: how MPC wallets reduce seed-phrase risks

In July, a hack of a widely used hardware wallet caused losses to users of about $130 million. The wallet key generation wasn’t random enough, meaning some seed phrases could be predicted and attackers could remotely recover them. This means users could follow all best practices and still lose funds because the seed phrase was compromised even during its creation.

That’s the problem with The Block’s report—it covers the risk that one key controls the entire wallet. Multi-party computation (MPC) solves this problem by distributing authorization to sign across separate parts of the key; typically, two of the three parts are required to approve a transaction. The full key is never reconstructed, and individual parts can be replaced when a user changes devices, so recovery doesn’t require starting all over again with a new address.

In the Binance Wallet report, it’s used as an example with a typical MPC construction and a three-part key model in which two parts are required. MPC cannot prevent phishing, malicious approvals, device hacks, or dangerous transactions that users approve themselves. However, removing the seed phrase as a single point of failure makes non-custodial storage and recovery more secure.

CoinDesk: tokenized stocks lead on RWA inflows

According to CoinDesk, real-world assets (RWA) this year have shown stronger performance than a significant portion of the crypto market: their total market capitalization exceeded $30 billion, and their share in spot trading volumes and perpetual futures has increased, despite a contraction in overall trading activity.

In this segment, tokenized stocks have become one of the main directions of demand. CoinDesk found that, over a 30-day net inflow period, they outperformed bonds and gold. Together, these three categories accounted for roughly three-quarters of RWA inflows.

bStocks is growing fast in the tokenized stocks segment. According to CoinDesk, bStocks ranked second by market capitalization during the two months after its launch in June and now accounts for 90% of the on-chain trading volume of tokenized stocks.

The behavior of users behind this growth is especially telling. In July, 58.5% of bStocks holders also traded perpetual futures or directly traded shares, while about 31% of assets under management were deposited as margin collateral. For many users, tokenized stocks apparently form part of a broader trading strategy rather than just buy-and-hold assets, which helps explain the demand for continuous access to trading after market hours end, as highlighted by DeFiLlama.

Key takeaways

Monthly reports for August indicate that the market is becoming more concentrated around liquidity, continuous access, and more reliable infrastructure. DeFiLlama shows that activity involving tokenized stocks is concentrated on venues that remain active after U.S. trading hours end. CryptoQuant points to further concentration of stablecoin liquidity held on exchanges, while CoinDesk highlights the rapid growth of tokenized stocks and their use in active trading strategies.

As more and more assets are traded around the clock and moved on-chain, holding becomes part of the same picture. The Binance Wallet MPC design removes one of the key vulnerabilities of non-custodial storage, reducing reliance on a single seed phrase. Taken together, these reports show that liquidity, access, and security are increasingly converging, and that Binance plays an ever more important role in how users trade, move capital, and manage assets in a market that operates continuously.

Please note: there may be discrepancies between this original English content and any translated versions (such versions may be created by artificial intelligence). If any discrepancies arise, please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information.

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