Coinbase expands into stock trading

Coinbase now lets all United States users trade stocks and exchange traded funds inside the same app they already use for Bitcoin, with zero-commission trades, fractional shares from $1, and 24 hours a day, 5 days a week access. (coinbase.com) That is a sharp turn for a company that spent most of its life as a crypto exchange. In December 2025, Coinbase said stock trading was only starting to roll out, and by February 24, 2026, it said the product was available to everyone in the United States. (coinbase.com 1) (coinbase.com 2) The pitch is convenience. A customer can look up Nvidia, Apple, or an exchange traded fund on Yahoo Finance and jump straight into a Coinbase trade ticket through a new partnership the two companies announced with the launch. (coinbase.com) The bigger change is what Coinbase wants to be. In its own product update, the company grouped stocks with prediction markets, futures, perpetual futures, token sales, and its Base app under one plan to become a broader financial platform instead of a pure crypto venue. (coinbase.com) (theblock.co) That puts Coinbase closer to Robinhood than to the old version of Coinbase. Robinhood started with stocks and added crypto later, while Coinbase started with crypto and is now adding stocks, so both are moving toward the same all-in-one retail trading model. (coindesk.com) (coinbase.com) The timing also fits Coinbase’s earnings story. In its February 12, 2026 results, the company said 2025 trading volume hit an all-time high and paid Coinbase One subscribers reached an all-time high after tripling in 3 years, which gives it a larger retail base to cross-sell into stocks. (investor.coinbase.com) Coinbase is not stopping at ordinary stock trades. In March 2026, it launched stock perpetual futures for eligible customers outside the United States, giving traders leveraged synthetic exposure to names like United States equities on a product that runs around the clock. (coinbase.com) (coindesk.com) So the app is turning into a single shelf with very different products on it: spot crypto for direct ownership, stocks and exchange traded funds for regular brokerage investing, and perpetual futures for leveraged bets. Coinbase’s own language for that shelf is “the future of finance” and “Everything Exchange.” (coinbase.com 1) (coinbase.com 2) The hard part is not adding one more button. The hard part is operating across different rulebooks, because Coinbase says stock trading is offered through Coinbase Capital Markets while its crypto services are offered by Coinbase Inc., which shows the business still sits across separate regulated entities. (coinbase.com) If this works, Coinbase gets paid more often and has fewer quiet months when crypto prices stall. A user who comes in for Bitcoin on Sunday night, an exchange traded fund on Tuesday morning, and a stock order from Yahoo Finance on Wednesday is a much stickier customer than a user who only shows up for crypto rallies. (coinbase.com) (investor.coinbase.com)