Coinbase is opening derivatives trading to professional investors in the United Kingdom, offering more than 170 contracts spanning crypto, commodities, equities, and foreign exchange with leverage of up to 50 times.

The launch was announced on Tuesday and covers three contract types, according to a blog post by UK and international vice president Keith Grose. Perpetuals span the full 170-plus assets, carry no expiry date, trade around the clock, and offer leverage of up to 50x. Dated futures settle on fixed dates, price cost-of-carry in at entry instead of charging funding rates, and cap at 20x leverage. Crypto options, limited to crypto underlyings, cover calls and puts across single and multi-leg strategies, with payoff diagrams built into the trading interface.

Derivatives are coming to Coinbase in the UK 🇬🇧
Eligible professional investors can soon access:
→ Futures → Perpetuals → Options
Across 170+ contracts in crypto, FX, equities, and commodities, with up to 50x leverage.
With access rolling out over the coming months. pic.twitter.com/wnOK9vaHnu
— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) August 11, 2026

Only investors classified as professional clients will qualify. Under FCA and MiFID rules, that status generally requires meeting at least two of three criteria: executing significant-volume transactions on a regular basis, holding a financial portfolio exceeding €500,000, or having at least one year of professional experience in the financial sector. Coinbase said the rollout will be progressive. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK retail consumers since 2021, leaving offshore venues as the primary route for individual traders.

The launch rests on the investment services authorization, commonly known as a MiFID licence, that Coinbase secured from the FCA on July 7, which cleared it to offer instruments beyond crypto. Coinbase had already taken crypto futures into 26 European countries in March under MiFID II, at leverage of up to 10 times. The UK offering's higher leverage ceiling and expanded asset coverage beyond crypto mark a step up from that European debut, bringing Coinbase's regulated offering closer to the product depth professional traders have historically sought on unlicensed offshore exchanges.

Grose framed the launch as part of the firm's "Everything Exchange" strategy, an effort to consolidate crypto, stocks, derivatives, and prediction markets into a single app. Coinbase noted that global crypto derivatives volume routinely runs at 4.4 times that of spot markets, a gap it argues leaves professional traders reliant on venues operating outside regulated markets.

A rapid rollout

The derivatives launch comes five days after Coinbase brought 24/5 U.S. stock trading to UK users, covering nearly 4,000 stocks, and six days after it opened perpetuals to wholesale clients in Australia. The company describes itself as the most comprehensively regulated crypto firm operating in the UK market.

That expansion is running ahead of the rulebook it will eventually sit under. The FCA finalized its crypto framework in June, but the regime does not become mandatory until October 2027. Firms launching now will operate under existing regulatory permissions until the new regime takes full effect.

The launch also arrives as the sector's relationship with UK finance remains unsettled. Parliament's Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group wrote to bank chief executives on Tuesday as part of an inquiry into banking access following complaints that crypto firms cannot reliably open accounts.