Coinbase Launches 24/7 Stock Perps for Non-US Traders

Coinbase stock perpetual futures went live for eligible non-US traders this week, marking the exchange's most aggressive push yet into synthetic equity exposure — a market that crypto-native platforms have quietly been eating into for years. Available around the clock, seven days a week, the contracts give retail users on Coinbase Advanced and institutions on Coinbase International Exchange leveraged, cash-settled bets on major American stocks and indices without ever touching a traditional brokerage.

What Are Coinbase Stock Perpetual Futures?

Cash-settled, leveraged, no expiry — and open all weekend

Stock perpetual futures are derivatives contracts that track the price of an underlying equity — in this case, names like Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA) — without ever requiring physical delivery of shares. They don't expire on a fixed date, which is the key structural difference from standard futures. A trader can hold the position indefinitely, paying or receiving a funding rate that keeps the contract price tethered to the spot market.

The format is second nature to anyone who's traded crypto derivatives. It's how most Bitcoin and Ethereum leverage has worked for years on offshore venues. Coinbase is now offering the same mechanics for US equities, targeting the large pool of international traders who want equity exposure but can't or won't deal with the friction of traditional stock markets.

According to Coinbase's official blog announcement, the contracts are cash-settled — meaning profits and losses move in dollars, not shares — and carry leverage. That makes them a genuinely different product from the tokenized stocks some platforms offer, where you get a wrapped representation of an actual share. Perps are pure price exposure. Faster to trade, faster to exit, and without the settlement complexity of actual equities.

Where Does This Fit Coinbase's 2026 Roadmap?

Coinbase has been telegraphing this for months. CEO Brian Armstrong said in January that the top priority for 2026 was to build what the company calls the Coinbase everything exchange — a single destination where traders can move between crypto, equities, prediction markets and commodities across spot, futures, and options without switching platforms.

Stock perpetuals are a core pillar of that vision. The company's 2026 roadmap also leans on its Base layer-2 network, stablecoins, and a multi-asset brokerage model designed to collapse the distance between TradFi instruments and crypto-native trading. Whether that vision holds together in practice is a fair question — but the product rollout pace suggests this isn't just marketing.

The equity perps launch follows a string of moves in the same direction: regulated crypto futures in the US, 24/5 cash equities trading, and Kalshi-powered prediction markets now accessible in all 50 states. Coinbase isn't quietly pivoting. It's publicly dismantling the argument that you need separate accounts for crypto and stocks.

For now, the stock perpetuals are strictly restricted to non-US customers. Coinbase said in a statement that the product is not available to US persons at the current time, though the exchange is "working to expand this offering to additional regions in the future." That US carveout isn't surprising — the regulatory treatment of equity derivatives in America is a different beast entirely, and Coinbase has been deliberate about not poking that particular cage prematurely.

Our top priority is to grow the everything exchange globally across crypto, equities, prediction markets and commodities over spot, futures and options.

Who Is Coinbase Up Against in This Market?

The synthetic equity space for non-US crypto traders is competitive, but fragmented. Binance has offered equity perpetual contracts for years on its international platform. Kraken launched tokenized equity perpetual futures for non-US traders more recently. And a long tail of offshore venues list single-stock and index perps under varying degrees of regulatory oversight — or none at all.

Coinbase's angle is regulatory credibility. The Coinbase International Exchange operates as a licensed institutional venue. In Europe specifically, Coinbase rolled out perpetual futures for Coinbase Advanced users across 26 countries earlier in March under its Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) entity — a real regulatory framework, not an offshore shell. That distinction matters to institutional desks that can't touch unregulated platforms.

The timing also isn't random. Earlier this month, tokenized stocks crossed $1 billion in total value locked onchain, a milestone for the real-world asset (RWA) sector and a sign that demand for crypto-native equity exposure is accelerating. Coinbase is entering this market at exactly the moment it's starting to look like a serious asset class rather than a niche experiment. The company isn't first. But it may be the most credible regulated player to show up at scale.

The honest read here: Coinbase is less concerned with beating Binance on fees or leverage ratios and more focused on being the regulated option institutions can actually use when their compliance team asks questions. That's a narrower market — but also a stickier one. If regulators tighten the screws on offshore equity perps venues over the next 12 months, Coinbase is positioned to catch that flow.