Coinbase has announced derivatives trading for professional investors in the United Kingdom, unveiling more than 170 contracts spanning crypto, commodities, equities and foreign exchange, with leverage reaching up to 50 times. The rollout, confirmed on Tuesday by Keith Grose, the firm’s UK and international vice president, covers three distinct product types and marks a significant expansion of Coinbase’s regulated footprint in Britain.
Three Product Types, Different Rules
Perpetual contracts cover the full suite of more than 170 assets. They carry no expiry date, trade around the clock, and allow leverage of up to 50x. Dated futures settle on fixed dates and price the cost of carry into the entry price rather than charging ongoing funding rates, with a leverage ceiling of 20x. Crypto options, restricted to crypto underlyings, offer calls and puts across single-leg and multi-leg strategies, with payoff diagrams built directly into the trading interface.
Access is being phased in progressively and is limited to clients formally classified as professional investors. The Financial Conduct Authority banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK retail consumers in 2021, leaving offshore platforms as the primary route for individual traders seeking that exposure.
MiFID Licence the Legal Foundation
The launch rests on the investment services authorisation, widely referred to as a MiFID licence, that the FCA granted Coinbase on July 7. That clearance allows the exchange to offer instruments beyond crypto assets. Coinbase had previously used a separate MiFID II authorisation to take crypto futures into 26 European countries in March, at leverage of up to 10 times.
Grose described the derivatives launch as part of the company’s ‘Everything Exchange’ strategy, which aims to bring crypto, equities, derivatives and prediction markets together inside a single application. Coinbase argued that global crypto derivatives volume consistently runs at 4.4 times the size of spot markets, a gap it says pushes professional traders toward unregulated venues.
A Rapid Rollout Across Markets
The UK derivatives announcement follows a quick sequence of international moves. Five days earlier, Coinbase brought 24/5 US stock trading to UK users, covering nearly 4,000 stocks. Six days before the derivatives announcement, it opened perpetual contracts to wholesale clients in Australia. The company describes itself as the most comprehensively regulated crypto firm operating in the UK market.
Coinbase’s expansion is running ahead of the definitive rulebook it will eventually operate under. The FCA finalised its broader crypto regulatory framework in June, but the new regime does not become mandatory until October 2027.
The launch also arrives against a backdrop of tension between crypto businesses and the UK banking sector. Parliament’s Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group wrote to bank chief executives on Tuesday over an ongoing inquiry into banking access, following complaints from crypto firms that they cannot reliably open or maintain accounts with mainstream lenders.
