Coinbase Expands Beyond Crypto: Now Offers Stock Trading, Prediction Markets, and Derivatives

Coinbase just rewrote its own playbook. The crypto giant isn't just a gateway to digital assets anymore—it's morphing into a full-spectrum financial platform. The move signals a massive strategic pivot, aiming to capture a much larger slice of the global investor's wallet.

From Bitcoin to Blue Chips

Forget choosing between crypto and traditional markets. The platform now lets users trade stocks alongside their favorite tokens, collapsing the wall between two asset classes that were once fiercely segregated. It's a direct challenge to legacy brokerages, offering a unified experience for a new generation of investors who don't see the distinction.

Betting on the Future, Literally

Prediction markets land with a provocative thud. Users can now stake on real-world events—elections, tech launches, even weather patterns. It turns speculation into a tradable asset, blurring the line between investment and informed gambling, a move that's bound to raise eyebrows among regulators who still struggle to categorize crypto itself.

The High-Stakes Game

Derivatives trading brings serious leverage to the party. This is where seasoned traders and institutional money play, offering sophisticated instruments for hedging and amplified bets. It's a critical step in maturing the platform's offerings, appealing to professional capital that demands more complex tools—and, of course, carries significantly higher risk.

This triple expansion isn't just an update; it's a declaration. Coinbase is no longer content being the on-ramp to crypto. It wants to be the entire highway system for modern finance, digital and traditional alike. One cynical take? They've finally realized there's more money in facilitating all forms of speculative frenzy than in just one of them. The race to become the everything-app for your money is officially on, and the finish line is your portfolio.

Coinbase has begun rolling out stock trading and prediction markets in the United States, a move that broadens the platform’s scope beyond cryptocurrency and into traditional and event-driven financial products. The expansion was detailed in a blog post yesterday.

U.S. users can now trade leading stocks and ETFs within the Coinbase app using USD or USDC, with zero-commission trading available during standard market days. Coinbase plans to expand its stock offerings over the coming months and has indicated a long-term ambition to introduce tokenized stocks, which could enable 24/7 global trading onchain.

The platform is also launching prediction markets, allowing users to trade contracts on outcomes of real-world events such as elections, sports, and economic indicators. Initial trading will be powered by Kalshi, with Coinbase signaling plans to integrate additional prediction market providers over time. Trades can be executed alongside crypto and cash balances in a single interface, with positions starting from $1.

Coinbase is further expanding access to derivatives, introducing a simplified futures and perpetual futures trading experience for millions of U.S. users. Separately, the company is integrating Solana decentralized exchange (DEX) trading into the main app, enabling users to trade newly launched tokens immediately via the Jupiter DEX aggregator.

These developments come amid a broader industry trend to combine traditional and digital finance on unified platforms. By offering equities, crypto, derivatives, and prediction markets in a single interface, Coinbase aims to position itself as a comprehensive financial hub for retail, institutional, and developer users.

Additional expansions include the global launch of the Base App, an onchain social and trading platform, and general availability of Coinbase Business for companies in the U.S. and Singapore. Coinbase has also introduced Coinbase Advisor, an AI-powered tool for automated portfolio guidance.