What Is Coinbase Offering UK Professional Investors?
Coinbase is expanding its UK business with a new suite of derivatives products for professional investors, adding perpetual contracts, dated futures and crypto options as part of its wider “Everything Exchange” strategy.
Access will begin progressively over the coming weeks and will be limited to eligible investors classified as professional clients. The offering includes more than 170 contracts covering cryptocurrencies, commodities, equities and foreign exchange.
Perpetual contracts will trade around the clock and offer leverage of up to 50x. Dated futures will have fixed settlement dates and leverage of up to 20x, giving professional traders another way to manage directional exposure, hedging and basis strategies across several asset classes.
Options will initially be limited to cryptocurrencies and will include calls, puts and multi-leg strategies. The addition broadens Coinbase’s derivatives business beyond products tied only to directional crypto trading and gives professional clients access to more complex volatility and hedging strategies.
The range also moves Coinbase closer to a multi-asset trading model rather than a platform centered mainly on spot cryptocurrency transactions. Professional investors will be able to access crypto alongside contracts linked to traditional markets through the same wider product ecosystem.
Why Does The MiFID License Matter?
The rollout follows Coinbase’s recently announced MiFID license, which the company said expanded its permissions to offer derivatives contracts in the UK. The regulatory approval provides the framework for Coinbase to target professional traders with products that carry greater complexity and leverage than standard spot markets.
Coinbase’s UK disclosures state that subsidiary CB Payments Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for investment services. The company is also authorized under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 for issuing electronic money.
Access to the new derivatives products will not be available to every UK customer. Investors must meet eligibility requirements and qualify as professional clients, an important distinction given the leverage available on perpetual and futures contracts.
The structure gives Coinbase a route to expand higher-value trading services without opening leveraged derivatives broadly to retail users. Professional clients typically include institutions, funds and sophisticated investors that can meet regulatory tests related to experience, financial resources or trading activity.
Investor Takeaway
Coinbase is using regulatory permissions to move deeper into professional trading rather than relying on spot crypto volume alone. The opportunity is larger transaction activity and a wider revenue base, but leveraged derivatives also make liquidity, execution quality and institutional adoption more important.
How Does This Fit The Everything Exchange Strategy?
The derivatives launch adds another layer to Coinbase’s “Everything Exchange” strategy in the UK, where the company has been expanding beyond cryptocurrency trading into equities, stablecoins, savings and borrowing products.
Last week, Coinbase began rolling out access to nearly 4,000 U.S. stocks for eligible UK users, allowing customers to add equities alongside crypto and fiat holdings. The combination of stocks, digital assets and derivatives points to a broader effort to compete for more of each customer’s trading and investment activity.
For professional users, that model could reduce the need to maintain separate relationships with traditional brokers, crypto exchanges and derivatives venues. Coinbase may also gain more opportunities to generate fees from customers who use multiple products rather than relying primarily on spot trading activity.
The strategy puts the exchange into closer competition with established multi-asset brokers as well as crypto-native platforms. Success will depend on whether Coinbase can provide sufficient liquidity, competitive pricing and reliable execution across asset classes where professional traders already have established alternatives.
Why Is Coinbase Diversifying Beyond Bitcoin Spot Trading?
Coinbase has been working to reduce its dependence on bitcoin spot trading as a source of revenue. In its second-quarter report, the company said 88% of net revenue came from sources other than bitcoin spot trading.
Its share of global crypto trading volume also reached a record 10.3%, up from 9.1% in the first quarter. Adding derivatives could help the exchange capture more activity from traders who use futures and options for leverage, hedging and portfolio management rather than buying and selling tokens directly.
Derivatives can generate activity through different market conditions because traders use them during both rising and falling markets. Options can also attract strategies based on volatility rather than outright price direction, widening the range of trading behavior Coinbase can monetize.
The UK rollout therefore has implications beyond geographic expansion. Coinbase is building a product mix that increasingly resembles a full trading platform spanning crypto and traditional financial markets.
The next measure will be adoption among professional investors. If Coinbase can attract institutional liquidity to its new contracts while continuing to expand equities and other services, the UK could become an important test of whether the “Everything Exchange” model can generate growth beyond the company’s traditional spot crypto business.
