Binance, this week, completed its ninth year of operations boasting that its all-time trading volume has officially exceeded the staggering mark of $156 trillion. The exchange, founded in 2017, claims that 323 million people — or 43 percent of the world’s 741 million crypto users — presently use its platform.
Binance said the multifold growth it has managed to clock over the last nine years can be owed to its push to establish itself beyond digital assets and into traditional finance. The platform does, afterall, allow users to trade stocks and ETFs while letting them settling directly in stablecoins.
What Binance highlighted
On clocking $156 trillion in total trading value so far, Binance pointed out that the figure is greater than the combined annual GDP of the U.S., China, Japan, Germany, and the UK.
Commenting on the feat, Binance co-founder and co-CEO Ye Hi said it testifies to teh shift in how the world now accesses finance.
“We set out to increase the freedom of money globally. What we have built is infrastructure that works for everyone. It works whether you are a retail trader in an emerging market or an institutional investor in a financial centre. When we launched in 2017, fewer than six million people owned crypto. Today, 741 million do,” she highlighted.
The crypto exchange credited the evolving regulatory landscape around digital assets for the growing number of investors now foraying into the sector. It named the G20 nations, the EU, the Middle East, and the South Asian nations for driving the legislative overhaul around crypto.
Despite the ongoing geo-political tensions and trade wars this year, Binance said, institutional participation in crypto rose by 11 percent in the first six months of 2026. In the same period, the exchange claimed, its users traded traditional stocks and ETFs worth over $80 billion directly via the platform.
“Users deserve access to global markets, and we intend to give it to them,” said Richard Teng, Co-CEO, Binance.
For its future, Binance is eyeing the three billion userbase mark which it envisions to hit by transforming its platform into a “super app”. It will be tuning its focus towards historically underserved markets going forward, it said in its statement marking its ninth anniversary.
Other pivotal moments for the exchange
Over the last nine years, the exchange has gathered multiple international licenses, but it recent had to halt its services in the EU for failing to obtain its MiCA registration.
Following a chain of SEC enforcement actions under the Biden administration and co-founder Changpeng Zhao’s guilty plea and prison sentence for Bank Secrecy Act violations, Binance scaled back its operations in the U.S.
Zhao, who is touted as the face of Binance, had to step down from his CEO role — appointing Richard Teng as his successor. During the Binance Blockchain Week last year, Ye Hi was named as a co-CEO of the exchange alongside Teng.
For the last few years, Binance has strengthened its teams in the UAE — especially in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Bhutan and Brazil are among emerging markets for crypto where the exchange is now expanding its footing.
Just last week, Binance denied reports claiming that it was looking to take a step back on collaborating with the U.S. DoJ on crypto crime probe. The exchange told The Coin Headlines that it actually plans to increase its cooperation with global law enforcement agencies.
Marking its ninth year of operations, the exchange unveiled a campaign dubbed “Built by You” — featuring up to $4.5 million in rewards and an interactive journey across nine landmarks in ‘BinanceCity’ — an interactive in-app game that takes players through nine virtual landmarks across the platform. The Grand Prize for this game can win players upto 99.99 BNB.
