Coinbase has announced a major update that goes far beyond just crypto and now lets users trade stocks and prediction markets, marking a shift toward becoming a full-service financial app for users around the world.
Coinbase’s co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong posted on X that “a new era of Coinbase is here.” He said the company wants to be the #1 financial services app in the world, not just a place to buy and sell crypto. These changes were introduced as part of what the company calls its “System Update 2025,” a broad effort to bring more financial products into one easy-to-use platform.
“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. “Maybe 1% 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.”
Stock Trading on Coinbase
Coinbase, the popular cryptocurrency exchange, allows its users in the United States can now trade traditional stocks and ETFs right inside the Coinbase app. This means people can manage crypto, stocks, and cash all in one place, without switching between different apps or accounts. Coinbase said it offers zero-commission trading, which means users won’t pay extra fees to buy and sell some stocks. The platform plans to grow this feature over time with more stocks and ways to trade them, including plans for tokenized stocks in the future that could trade around the clock.
This expansion puts Coinbase in more direct competition with popular trading apps like Robinhood and Interactive Brokers. The company also expanded access to futures and perpetual futures trading by integrating a simplified derivatives interface into the main Coinbase app. Previously available only to Coinbase Advanced, these products are now available to a greater number of US users.
Prediction Markets Through Kalshi
Coinbase has also launched prediction markets, made possible through a partnership with Kalshi. Prediction markets let people trade outcomes of real-world events like elections, sports games, or economic trends by buying and selling simple yes-or-no contracts tied to what might happen. Coinbase users can join these markets using U.S. dollars or the stablecoin USDC, making it easy for anyone to participate.
Kalshi has been growing fast in recent years and already offers markets on everything from politics to economic data. By partnering with Kalshi, Coinbase brings this feature into its own user base of millions of traders. According to analysts, prediction markets currently generate around $2 billion in annual revenue, a figure that could grow five times to nearly $10 billion by 2030 as institutional investors begin to participate.
Max Branzburg, Coinbase’s head of consumer and business products, said the company is not worried about being late to the space. “We aim to offer the greatest variety of contracts available on one platform,” Branzburg said. “We expect existing Coinbase customers will bring all of their assets under one roof, while we reach a new subset of consumers.”
What Users Can Expect Next
Alongside stocks and prediction markets, Coinbase is also rolling out more tools such as easier trading interfaces, artificial-intelligence-powered financial guidance, and deeper support for decentralized markets like Solana DEX trading.
The company says this is just the beginning of its journey to build what it calls the “Everything Exchange,” a single place where users can trade and manage almost any financial asset they want. With these updates, Coinbase is trying to attract not just crypto lovers but anyone interested in trading stocks or even making predictions on real-world events, all from the same app. It’s a big bet on the future of finance.
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Source: https://www.cryptonewsz.com/coinbase-expands-stocks-and-prediction-markets/
