Coinbase rolls out crypto derivatives in UK with up to 50x leverage

Coinbase has launched more than 170 derivatives contracts for professional investors in the UK, offering perpetuals with up to 50x leverage alongside dated futures and crypto options.

In a statement shared with crypto.news on Tuesday, Coinbase said eligible professional clients will progressively gain access to contracts covering cryptocurrencies, commodities, equities and foreign exchange over the coming weeks and months.

Perpetual futures will make up the largest part of the new offering, with more than 170 supported assets and 24/7 trading. Investors will be able to take long or short positions, use the contracts for delta-neutral hedges and trade with leverage of up to 50x.

Dated futures will carry fixed settlement dates and offer leverage of up to 20x across commodity and financial contracts. Unlike perpetual contracts, the products will not carry ongoing funding rates, with the cost of holding a position instead priced into the contract at entry.

Coinbase is also adding crypto options, allowing professional clients to trade calls and puts through single-leg or multi-leg strategies such as spreads and combinations. The exchange said its interface will include payoff diagrams and a strategy builder showing potential profit, loss and breakeven levels before a trade is placed.

Coinbase derivatives launch follows UK regulatory approval

Access to the new contracts is restricted to investors who satisfy Coinbase’s eligibility requirements and qualify as professional clients.

The rollout follows the exchange’s recently announced MiFID license, which Coinbase said changed the range of investment products it can provide to UK clients and enabled the derivatives launch.

In July, crypto.news previously reported that Coinbase had secured UK investment services authorization that cleared the company to add traditional financial products alongside crypto through its platform.

Under the approval, retail customers could gain access to equities while institutional clients could be offered derivatives tied to crypto, equities and commodities.

At the time, Coinbase said the authorization allowed it to offer regulated investment products before the UK’s full crypto regulatory regime takes effect in October 2027. The company also cited Financial Conduct Authority research showing that about seven million UK adults owned crypto.

For its latest derivatives rollout, Coinbase said the products are intended to give professional traders tools commonly used in traditional finance for hedging, managing risk and improving capital efficiency.

The company pointed to the size of the crypto derivatives market as part of its reasoning, saying global derivatives trading volume routinely reaches about 4.4 times crypto spot market volume.

“Professional traders across key international hubs have often lacked access to a single, regulated platform for these tools,” Coinbase said.

UK rollout extends Coinbase’s Everything Exchange plan

The derivatives offering forms another part of Coinbase’s “Everything Exchange” strategy, under which the company has been adding financial products outside its core crypto spot business.

As covered in June, the exchange outlined plans to combine crypto trading, stocks, commodities, derivatives, payments and lending through a single account.

Coinbase described the model as an alternative to financial platforms where assets remain split across different accounts and trading is limited by traditional market hours. Its product plans have also included prediction markets and services that use artificial intelligence for portfolio management.

In the UK, the company has already introduced savings and borrowing products as it expands the range of services available through its platform.

Coinbase launched crypto-backed loans for UK customers in April, allowing eligible users to borrow as much as $5 million in USDC against bitcoin, ethereum and cbETH.

The loans are issued through Morpho on Coinbase’s Base network and use overcollateralized crypto positions. They carry variable interest rates and do not have fixed repayment schedules, while liquidation depends on the value of the collateral relative to the outstanding loan.

More recently, Coinbase began rolling out access to nearly 4,000 U.S. stocks for eligible UK users, placing equities alongside customers’ existing crypto and fiat holdings.

“Our vision is to make Coinbase a single place where everyone from first-time crypto investors to the most sophisticated traders can access and manage all of their assets,” the exchange said in Tuesday’s statement.

Coinbase has been building out regulated derivatives access

The UK launch follows other derivatives expansions by Coinbase in regulated markets.

In May, the exchange opened derivatives access for eligible U.S. institutions through Coinbase Financial Markets, initially giving clients access to Deribit crypto options.

Coinbase said at the time that the structure gave U.S. institutional customers a regulated route into global crypto derivatives markets. The offering followed Commodity Futures Trading Commission staff action addressing the treatment of certain crypto perpetual contracts as foreign futures under specified conditions.

Derivatives have also become part of the exchange’s plans outside the U.S. and UK. Coinbase secured an Australian financial services license in April, with the company saying it would initially use the approval for crypto and equity perpetuals before adding futures, options and other traditional financial products.

Its derivatives expansion has also moved into markets that do not have publicly traded underlying shares. In June, Coinbase introduced pre-IPO perpetual futures tied to private companies, beginning with SpaceX and outlining plans for contracts linked to OpenAI and Anthropic.

The UK product set differs by contract type. Perpetuals will run around the clock without expiration dates, while dated futures will settle on predetermined dates. Crypto options will allow investors to structure trades around volatility and defined risk rather than relying only on directional long or short positions.

For dated futures, Coinbase said completing the required onboarding will automatically unlock access to perpetuals.

Coinbase expands beyond bitcoin spot trading

The addition of UK derivatives comes as Coinbase has been generating more of its business outside bitcoin spot transactions.

In its second-quarter report, the company said 88% of net revenue came from sources other than bitcoin spot trading. Coinbase also reported that its share of global crypto trading volume reached a record 10.3% during the quarter, compared with 9.1% in the first quarter.

Its UK operations now cover crypto services alongside an expanding set of regulated financial products. Coinbase describes itself as “the most comprehensively regulated crypto player” in the UK market.

According to the company’s UK regulatory disclosures, CB Payments Ltd is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority for investment services. The subsidiary is also authorized under the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 to issue electronic money. Access will begin progressively for UK professional investors who complete its eligibility checks and receive classification as a professional client.