On June 1, Binance officially launched stock and ETF trading for non-U.S. users, offering over 8,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs with zero commission and fractional shares starting at just $5, purchasable with USDC, USDT, BNB, and other cryptocurrencies. Behind the scenes, one detail caught the industry's attention: Binance selected Alpaca, a U.S.-licensed broker, as its custody and operations partner to handle asset safekeeping, dividend distributions, and corporate actions. Alpaca's role in the booming crypto-stock narrative turns out to be far more pervasive than many had realized.
Around the same time, other exchanges accelerated their stock tokenization plans. On May 28, Bitget unveiled Reality, a stock token platform that would issue rTokens 1:1 pegged to real equities. Bitget's Chinese head, Xie Jiayin, confirmed that the underlying broker was Alpaca. On June 1, Gate also launched real stock trading, allowing users to invest in the U.S. stock market with USDT; a Gate official, Godot, likewise confirmed Alpaca as its broker. The collective choice of CeFi players was no coincidence.
The DeFi sector mirrored this trend. Ondo, the dominant force in on-chain stock tokens, partnered with Alpaca as early as last September to tokenize U.S. equities and ETFs. Its direct competitor, Kraken's xStocks protocol, announced a partnership with Alpaca last December to accelerate global rollouts beyond the U.S. By now, it had become nearly impossible to find a stock token trading service—whether centralized or decentralized—that did not rely on Alpaca. According to data disclosed by Alpaca on December 4, 2025, the company had already captured a commanding 94% share of the tokenized U.S. stock and ETF market, nearly forming a single-provider infrastructure layer for the entire crypto-stock convergence narrative.
From Quant Data Startup to the 94% Brokerage Powerhouse
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in California, Alpaca was started by former Lehman Brothers employee and serial entrepreneur Yoshi Yokokawa (CEO) and engineer Hitoshi Harada (CPO). Initially, Alpaca was a financial database and machine learning shop, building APIs for quantitative traders. As it expanded, it evolved from a pure trading interface provider into a full-fledged financial infrastructure platform covering stocks, ETFs, options, cryptocurrencies, market data, securities lending, high-yield cash accounts, and 24/5 U.S. stock trading. Today, Alpaca employs over 250 people across 25 countries, serves hundreds of financial institutions and fintech companies in more than 40 countries and regions, and has helped partners open over 7 million brokerage accounts. Since 2019, the firm has raised more than $320 million from investors including Y Combinator, Spark Capital, Portage Ventures, Tribe Capital, and SBI Group.
API-First: How “Brokerage-as-a-Service” Embeds into Crypto
Unlike traditional brokers that serve end investors directly, Alpaca treats developers as its core clients. Its Broker API delivers complete modules for account opening, KYC, order execution, clearing & settlement, and market data. Partners simply plug in via API to quickly build a full securities trading system, bypassing the expensive and complex hurdles of licensing, compliance, custody, and routing. This “Brokerage-as-a-Service” model allows platforms like Binance, Bitget, Gate, and Ondo to focus on user acquisition and experience, while Alpaca handles every back-end connection to the real-world securities markets. For crypto platforms, integrating with Alpaca is not just a technical choice—it is the shortest path to compliant, mainstream stock trading.
Why Alpaca? Traditional Brokers Are Not Without Opportunity
The U.S. has thousands of registered broker-dealers, and giants like Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, and Fidelity dwarf Alpaca in brand recognition and assets under management. Yet when the stock tokenization wave arrived, it was this nimble, decade-old upstart that seized the lead. The root cause is that Alpaca was never a traditional broker in spirit—it was built API-first from day one, precisely aligning with crypto platforms that want to modularly embed securities trading into their own ecosystems. At the same time, Alpaca was among the very first licensed U.S. brokers to proactively embrace digital assets and tokenization, building industry ties and compliance frameworks long before tokenized stocks became a hotspot. This early-mover advantage and sector alignment form a moat that traditional finance titans find hard to replicate.
The Self-Reinforcing Shovel Seller Effect
Network effects are now amplifying Alpaca's lead. For new entrants, choosing Alpaca means the fastest time-to-market and the most mature compliance path. As more platforms plug in, account numbers and trading volumes rise, pushing Alpaca to further refine its products and infrastructure, which in turn attracts even latecomers. This virtuous cycle is cementing Alpaca's dominance. Stock tokenization has become an undeniable trend; the track may give birth to multiple Binances or Ondos, but the one selling shovels to all the gold diggers—Alpaca—may well be the most certain long-term winner in this race. For those who follow, integrating with Alpaca is not just a technical decision but the fastest compliance gateway into the mainstream tokenized stock market, creating a sticky, hard-to-disrupt ecosystem barrier.
