Coinbase has unveiled its most ambitious expansion yet, signaling a decisive move to reposition itself as a full scale financial platform rather than a pure cryptocurrency exchange.
The company said Wednesday it is rolling out a broad set of products that extend far beyond digital assets, including stock trading, advanced derivatives, and prediction markets. The push reflects a strategic effort to capture more consistent user engagement and diversify revenue as competition intensifies across retail investing and on chain finance.
Coinbase said the new offerings are now fully built and ready to launch, marking a transition from long signaled plans to execution. Chief executive Brian Armstrong is aiming to turn the platform into a single destination where users can trade across asset classes, from equities to crypto native instruments.
At the center of the expansion is Coinbase’s move into stocks, alongside a more streamlined experience for futures and perpetual contracts. The company is also entering prediction markets through a partnership with Kalshi, as outcome based trading gains traction across finance and consumer platforms.
Prediction markets are becoming one of the most crowded and competitive segments in trading. DraftKings is pursuing its own exchange, FanDuel is working with CME, and Polymarket is entering the United States through a newly approved venue. Robinhood has placed its regulated derivatives arm LedgerX at the core of its own expansion.
Despite the growing field, Armstrong believes prediction markets serve a broader purpose than speculation alone.
“If you look at things like economic indicators … or elections, people are using prediction markets to try to figure out what is going to happen next month,” Armstrong told CNBC. “Maybe1% of people use it as an asset class to trade, and 99% of people are using it as a way to figure out what’s going to happen — almost like a competitor to traditional media or maybe even entertainment.”
That view aligns with a wider industry shift. Robinhood this week highlighted prediction markets as its fastest growing revenue segment, expanding into sports style contracts that resemble parlays and prop bets. Coinbase is now following a similar path, but as part of a broader vision that blends traditional finance with blockchain based infrastructure.
Alongside new trading products, Coinbase outlined a long term roadmap centered on tokenization. The company said it plans to bring more traditional assets on chain over time, including equities, as part of what it sees as a structural upgrade to global financial markets.
To support that effort, Coinbase is launching Coinbase Tokenize, an institutional platform designed to enable real world asset tokenization. Armstrong described stock trading as an entry point rather than the final objective.
Trading equities, he said, is “a good first step,” but the larger ambition is tokenized shares that can move natively on blockchain rails. If achieved, Armstrong argued, tokenized equity markets could expand global access and reshape market structure in the United States, including more sophisticated futures tied to stocks.
“So this is the starting point,” he said.
The announcement also deepens Coinbase’s role as a provider of on chain liquidity, not just a marketplace for listed tokens. The company is positioning itself as infrastructure for both retail users and institutions looking to migrate financial activity onto blockchain networks.
For businesses and developers, Coinbase is widening its platform offering under the Coinbase Business brand. The company said the service is becoming available to eligible customers in the United States and Singapore, alongside an expanded suite of application programming interfaces covering custody, payments, trading, and stablecoins.
Coinbase is also introducing custom stablecoins for companies seeking branded payment rails, and promoting x402, a payments standard intended to link stablecoin transfers directly to web requests. The company said the standard could support automated commerce and transactions driven by software agents.
The underlying strategy is retention and diversification. Coinbase already controls one of the largest crypto native user bases globally. By adding stocks, derivatives, and outcome based trading, the company aims to keep customers engaged even during periods when cryptocurrency volumes decline and transaction fees come under pressure.
Armstrong framed the shift as part of a much larger transformation rather than a tactical product launch.
“Crypto is updating all financial services,” he said, arguing that most major asset classes will eventually move on chain, from prediction markets and equities to commodities and real estate.
He added that large asset managers are increasingly signaling interest in moving funds onto blockchain infrastructure, positioning Coinbase as a potential gateway for that transition.
For investors, the expansion represents a bet that the next generation brokerage will not separate traditional finance from crypto, but merge them into a single, always on platform. As competition accelerates across trading, payments, and tokenization, Coinbase is betting that scale, infrastructure, and product breadth will determine the winners.
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