Coinbase adds prediction markets, stock trading more business tools

coinbase It is making its biggest move yet to reposition itself as a mainstream trading and finance platform by moving beyond crypto and into the broader retail investment stack, as rivals show there is real money in their always-on interaction products.

The digital asset exchange announced Wednesday that it will launch a major new product line designed to transform Coinbase into a one-stop financial app, expanding into stocks, more advanced trading and prediction markets, while also doubling down on its on-chain ecosystem and new tools for businesses, developers and automated financial guidance.

While many of these offers have been telegraphed for months, Coinbase says the products are now manufactured and ready to go.

CEO Brian Armstrong wants to make his platform a place where anything can be traded.

This includes stocks, an improved futures and perpetual trading experience, and prediction markets through Kalshi, as well as a tokenization roadmap that aims to eventually bring more traditional assets, including stocks, to the chain.

The field of prediction markets in particular is rapidly becoming crowded.

DraftKings has moved to acquire its own exchange, FanDuel is teaming up with CME, and Polymarket is entering the US via a newly approved platform. robinhoodIn the meantime, he puts LedgerX at the center of his edited work.

The decisive competition in the space is Kalshi vs Polymarket remains crypto-native liquidity with regulated rails.

The appeal of the category isn’t just the commerce, Armstrong said, but its sentiment and insight into what people think will happen next on any given topic.

“If you look at things like economic indicators or elections, people use prediction markets to predict what’s going to happen next month,” Armstrong told CNBC. “Maybe 1% of people use it as an asset class to trade, and 99% of people use it as a way to figure out what’s going to happen, almost like a rival to traditional media and even entertainment.”

During the company’s third-quarter earnings call with analysts in October, Armstrong demonstrated how easily predicted market bets can be manipulated and listed several words that are being bet on.

“I was a little distracted because I was following the prediction market on what Coinbase was going to say in its next earnings call,” Armstrong said. “And I want to add the words bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain, staking and Web3 here to make sure we get those before the end of the call.”

Robinhood underscored that shift this week by expanding its prediction markets into sports-style contracts similar to bets and prop bets, touting the category as the fastest-growing business in terms of revenue.

Coinbase is now bringing the same type of outcomes trading to its ecosystem, but as part of a much broader assertion that next-generation brokerage is a single application that blends traditional assets, derivatives, and on-chain rails.

Coinbase is pairing the trading expansion with a tokenization roadmap that shows where it wants the platform to go next, bringing more traditional assets, including stocks, to the chain.

The company is launching Coinbase Tokenize, an enterprise stack aimed at supporting real-world asset tokenization.

Armstrong framed the expansion as a bridge to something greater.

He said stock trading is “a good first step” but the real goal is tokenized stocks. If Coinbase can implement tokenized stocks, he said it could “democratize access for people around the world” and unlock new market structure, including more robust, professional futures markets tied to stocks in the US.

“So that’s the starting point,” he said.

The announcement also expands Coinbase’s push to become a provider of on-chain liquidity and not just a destination for listed tokens.

For businesses and developers, Coinbase expands the platform story beyond retail commerce. Coinbase Business is now available to eligible customers in the US and Singapore, introducing an expanded suite of APIs covering custody, payments, trading and stablecoins, the company said.

Armstrong’s broader thesis is that cryptocurrency is not a niche category but an upgrade cycle for the financial system itself.

“Crypto is upgrading all financial services,” he said, suggesting that every major asset class, from prediction markets to stocks, commodities, and eventually real-world assets like real estate, will move on-chain over time.

He said even the largest asset managers have signaled that they want to move funds on-chain, positioning Coinbase as a central platform for this transition.

Coinbase also offers “custom stablecoins” for companies that want branded stablecoin rails, and the company is touting x402, a payments standard that aims to make it easier for stablecoin payments to be attached to web requests, including automated trading and broker-driven transactions.

The strategic through line is retention and diversification.

Coinbase already has a large crypto-native audience and wants that customer to remain on its platform for every asset class even as crypto volumes cool and transaction revenues shrink.

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