Coinbase Rebuilds Its Trading Business Just as the Ground Under Exchanges Starts to Shift

Coinbase is tidying up its trading business before a bigger fight

Coinbase is doing two things at once. It's reviving the Coinbase Pro brand, and it has finished folding Deribit into a single venue called Coinbase Global Exchange. Taken together, that looks less like housekeeping and more like Coinbase pulling its trading business into one place ahead of a fight over who runs crypto derivatives in the U.S.

If you own COIN stock or trade on the platform, the real question isn't the rebrand. It's whether Coinbase can keep active traders as the tech underneath exchanges starts to change. That's especially true for traders who use perps, short for perpetual futures, which are leveraged bets on a price with no expiry date.

"Hyperliquid is not meant to compete with Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, and CME. Hyperliquid sits one level below them in the technology stack." — Jake Chervinsky, Hyperliquid Policy Center

What actually happened

According to The Block, Coinbase plans to relaunch Coinbase Pro by the end of the year. It has also completed its Deribit integration, and the result is Coinbase Global Exchange. The sources don't include fees, product details or volume targets. So read this as a reorganization for now, not a price war. Don't expect your trading costs to change until Coinbase says so.

The timing came on a rough night for the market. Bitcoin briefly slipped below $84,000, and long liquidations hit $487 million. Those are leveraged bets on rising prices that got automatically closed when the market moved against them. That's the double edge of a derivatives business. Volume pours in when traders pile on leverage, and it turns ugly when they get wiped out.

Robinhood also added $25 million of bitcoin to its balance sheet. SVP Johann Kerbrat said the purchase was meant to signal the company's commitment to crypto. The practical point is that the brokerage competition for crypto customers isn't letting up.

Why it matters: the threat may be the plumbing, not a rival app

The sharpest idea in this news cycle comes from Hyperliquid, not Coinbase. Jake Chervinsky, CEO of the Hyperliquid Policy Center, told The Block that Hyperliquid 'is not meant to compete with Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, and CME.' He says it 'sits one level below them in the technology stack.' He compares it to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana: public infrastructure that has no reason to register as an exchange.

His prediction goes further. If Hyperliquid succeeds, he says, then 10 years from now 'every single exchange,' from Coinbase and Kraken to CME and ICE, will have to integrate public blockchain tech to compete. That's an advocate talking his book, so take it with salt. But there's an early real-world example. In September, Payward announced plans for permissioned perp markets on Hyperliquid for U.S. clients. 'Permissioned' means only approved users can trade. Bitnomial, the CFTC-regulated exchange Payward acquired, would create the contracts and clear them, meaning it would guarantee that trades settle. NinjaTrader Clearing would hold the accounts.

Here's what that means for Coinbase. If rivals can offer regulated U.S. perps on shared onchain rails, then running your own trading engine stops being much of an advantage. The edge shifts to brand, ease of use and being the trusted, regulated front door. A unified Global Exchange and a revived Pro look like Coinbase investing in exactly those things. Whether that's a hedge or a coincidence, the sources don't say.

The bigger picture and what to watch

Washington decides how fast this moves. Regulators already let registered exchanges offer crypto perps to U.S. customers, and the CFTC opened that door for Kalshi. President Trump has also said the CFTC would bring Hyperliquid onshore in a compliant way. The missing piece is approval for the onchain infrastructure itself. Chervinsky expects that 'at some point soon.' If it happens, a big part of the moat that comes with being a U.S.-regulated exchange gets narrower.

Incumbents are pushing back. In June, CME sued the CFTC to overturn its approval of perps as futures, arguing they should count as swaps, a different legal category. The CFTC says CME lacks standing, meaning no right to sue, because the same rule lets CME list perps too. Chervinsky called the suit 'a delay tactic' and said CME is very unlikely to win. The case is waiting on a ruling on a motion to dismiss. That ruling is the near-term signal to watch. Chervinsky also expects perps to expand next to oil, metals and agricultural contracts. If that happens, this stops being only a crypto story.

For Coinbase watchers, keep three questions in mind. What will Pro and Global Exchange actually charge? Will Coinbase report derivatives volume as its own line item? And will it eventually plug into onchain rails itself? If Chervinsky is right, that last one won't be optional.