Gen Z are investing like Boomers – with some surprising portfolio decisions

Like fashion, investing eventually finds something embarrassing in the back of the wardrobe and puts it on again. Millennial-era crypto gave us yield-bearing dog coins and all kinds of food-themed financial contraptions. Now Gen Z has entered the market in JNCO jeans, carrying an ironic digicam and, in at least one corner of the market, displaying a positively parental interest in conventional investments.The jeans are super low again, and apparently their tolerance for portfolio risk is, too.Binance Research's Aug. 12 report looked at how different generations use the exchange's direct equities, tokenized bStocks, and TradFi perpetuals. The youngest users weren't the ones constantly reaching for leverage or flipping positions. Across all three products, Gen Z was the lowest-turnover working-age cohort. The findings cover Binance users over a short period; its direct-equity product only reached scale in June 2026.The most traditional-est, conservativ-est, unimaginativest portfolios in crypto, believe it or not, may belong to zoomers.A rebellion with an expense ratioThe easiest place to see the difference is in ETFs.ETFs accounted for 25% of Gen Z's direct-equity trading volume in t...