How To Buy Stocks With Crypto: A Beginner Introduction

If you're the kind of investor that prefers to maintain a diversified portfolio of shares that includes both cryptocurrencies and conventional stocks, rebalancing your portfolio is currently a total hassle. Assume your stocks have performed exceptionally well and you want to transfer a portion of the profit to cryptocurrency. There are some procedural considerations that must be observed.

To begin, you must sell the stocks from your brokerage account, which will incur a brokerage charge. Once the proceeds of the transaction are deposited in your bank account, you'll need to move them to a fiat-to-crypto exchange. If that is completed, you can actually purchase bitcoin, but you would almost certainly pay additional costs for this transaction as well.

Let's hope your desired crypto transaction is not one of the altcoins that can only be purchased via a crypto-to-crypto exchange. If it is, you would need to make another move to a second cryptocurrency exchange in order for your assets to be spent where you want them to be.

It's far from a painless operation, and the possibility of paying payments to various parties along the way makes it almost impossible to manage. Your latest investment will have to begin producing returns very rapidly in order to offset the costs associated with the transfer. The method is same in reverse—purchasing stocks of cryptocurrency entails all of the same measures and costs.

What Are Stock Tokens?

Stock tokens are digital assets that closely track the value of conventional financial instruments, most notably publicly-traded corporations' shares. Stock tokens are delta-one assets backed by physical stock. This implies that with every immediate change in the price of the underlying asset, an analogous change in the price of the derivative is anticipated.

Unlike standard securities, consumers can use stock tokens to buy fractional shares of listed firms. For example, if a Tesla share is trading over $700, stock tokens allow investors to purchase a fraction of the underlying share (such as 0.01) rather than the whole unit.

Stock Tokens on Binance

Stock tokens are denominated, settled, and collateralized in BUSD, which simplifies and expedites the computation of returns in fiat. Due to the fact that the tokens are cash-settled, there will be no actual redemption of the underlying shares.

Stock tokens are generated using third-party collateral. As a result, each token is equivalent to a share of a publicly traded corporation. Thus, the price of the token is linked to the price of the underlying shares.

Each token is completely collateralized by shares in CM-Equity AG, a fully licensed and controlled asset management company in Germany. CM-Equity AG entrusts the custody of the purchased stock to a third-party trading company. Additionally, CM-Equity AG will conduct a regulatory review of all trading activity.

To begin trading, navigate to the stock tokens tab, select the token you wish to sell, and press [Trade].

But first, you must complete Level 2 KYC (Level 3 for German users) and assent to the Binance Stock Tokens Trading Service Agreement.

Following that, you will be required to fund the “fiat and spot” wallet with BUSD.

If the order is filled, the trade will deduct BUSD from the spot wallet, and the asset tab on the trading interface will show a TSLA/BUSD holding. Please keep in mind that there will be no stock token wallet, and the BUSD balance shown on the UI will be the user's spot BUSD balance.

Stock tokens are redeemable for cash only meaning that users will be able to transfer their tokens to the Binance market and gain an equal value in BUSD. Additionally, stock tokens are non-fungible. Users can only purchase and sell on Binance. Tokens cannot be traded on other markets.

Handling Corporate Action

Stock tokens are entirely collateralized by the underlying market, and their investors profit from the underlying stock economics. As a result, token investors can have access to some shareholder incentives. Holders are entitled to dividends, which are automatically distributed to individuals. Additional company activities, such as stock splits, are enabled. In this case, Binance will immediately issue tokens reflecting any additional shares that become available. Both corporate decisions will be communicated to clients in advance by email.

However, the tokens themselves do not grant legal privileges. Holders of stock tokens do not have civil or voting rights. Additionally, token investors are qualified to vote at the company's annual general meeting.

FTX Tokenized Stocks

FTX has tokenized stock exchange markets with a range of US-listed large-cap firms. For example, TSLA/USD is a market that trades Tesla stock tokens. This operates in a manner close to that of other financial derivatives.

That is, rather than buying the underlying securities, when you exchange these tokenized stocks, you are selling tokens that represent the future stock price. Having said that, you should exchange the tokenized stocks with CM Equity for real shares. Additionally, FTX is aiming to expand the forms in which users will remove tokens from the exchange.

Tokenized securities are traded on the spot market much as every other currency. The only stipulation is that you must successfully complete KYC level 2 with FTX.

For tokenized stocks, there is an additional layer of difficulty, as you must trust that the exchange maintains sufficient stock reserves to match the tokens released. However, if you find yourself struggling to cash out in the usual manner, I believe this is a gamble worth taking.

Additionally, markets such as FTX encourage you to bet on pre-IPO securities such as Coinbase, which traded on FTX for weeks (as a derivative instrument) prior to being publicly listed on the NASDAQ market.

Other Options To Buy Stocks With Crypto

You can also buy stocks using crypto in exchanges that support both cryptocurrency and securities trading. One example of such is eToro.

On eToro, traders can trade hundreds of various financial assets across many areas, including stocks, crypto assets, currencies, indices, and exchange-traded funds. Each asset class is unique in its own way and can be traded using a number of different investing strategies. Certain positions on eToro include possession of underlying securities, such as long (BUY) positions in stocks and cryptocurrencies. Others use CFDs, which allow a range of trading strategies, including leveraged trades, short (SELL) positions, and fractional ownership.

The stock market is competitive and offers traders many opportunities. Generally, stocks are seen as ideal for short- to long-term investments. Each stock is influenced by unique market events and can fluctuate in value in response to announcements such as earnings releases, new product releases, and shifts in the stock prices of competitors.

For instance, if a smartphone maker gets bad publicity as a result of a defect in one of its product lines, it is likely that the share prices of its direct rivals will increase. Profitable businesses also distribute dividends to owners at a fixed rate per share.

By opening a BUY (long), non-leveraged account on eToro, you invest in the underlying asset*, which is bought and kept in your name.

eToro, on the other hand, provides additional functions through CFD trading. CFDs allow you to open SELL (short) positions, maximize your investment, and purchase fractional shares. For instance, on eToro, you can invest as little as $100 in a $500 stock.

By purchasing crypto on eToro, you are investing in the underlying asset, which is bought and owned on your behalf by eToro. This is what many refer to as unleveraged trading. Purchasing and selling the underlying assets is unregulated and offers little security for investors.

What is the Difference between Stocks and Stock Tokens?

An individual may acquire a stake in a business by purchasing shares via conventional equity investments. A company's share or shares demonstrates that you own X percent of the company. Possessing shares of a company confers certain rights on the owner, the most significant of which is the right to a portion of the company's assets. Additionally, the right to a dividend and voting rights can be acquired. Specific privileges vary according to the type of shares (voting or non-voting) and whether or not the corporation pays dividends aggressively.

In the other hand, security tokens are a comparatively recent 'invention' created by blockchain technology. Stocks perform similar roles to authentication tokens. Both reflect a company's wealth and indicate a company's ownership percentage. Similarly, holders can have voting rights and receive dividends, based on the form of token.

Unlike securities, tokens are built on top of blockchain technologies.
Stock ownership is typically established either by the broker or directly through the firm listed on the register. However, for tokens, investors can store ownership of their own blockchain wallets, since the tokens are connected to a personal blockchain wallet and the register is pulled from the blockchain.
To sell securities, the transaction must be routed through a broker and/or executed on a stock exchange. Tokens can be easily sold on a managed Security Token Exchange.
The blockchain is a decentralized database that cannot be altered.
There is also considerable legal and administrative confusion about security tokens at the moment. That is not true of stock.