Coinbase has announced its foray into new avenues including stocks and prediction markets as it looks to transform its exchange platform into an “everything app”. On Wednesday, Coinbase held an event dubbed “System Update” in San Francisco, U.S.
Stepping into the prediction market space, Coinbase has announced a partnership with Kalshi to let app users place bets on the expected outcomes of future events from within its own ecosystem.
Additionally, the exchange has also added the stock trading feature to its offerings. In the initial phase of the stock market entry, the exchange will offer a select list of major stocks and ETFs. In the coming months, however, Coinbase plans to add “thousands” of more stock options for purchase.
Riding on the crypto culture of 24 hour trading – the exchange said its stock trading will also work in the same time format – but for five days a week. The exchange said it will charge no additional fee from its users on stock trading.
Addressing the event, CEO Brain Armstrong said that his plan with Coinbase is for the platform to outperform traditional financial management tools in the next leg of business.
Tapping into the stablecoin ecosystem, Coinbase announced a one-of-a-kind service. Essentially, it said it will now allow entities to create “custom-branded stablecoins”. These tokens could look like brand logos or be coined after brand mascots – but would have to be backed by flexible collateral like the USDC.
“Today we’re also announcing the ability to embed your brand in every transaction; rewards on balances with best-in-class economics; and a seamless issuance process managed by Coinbase. We are excited to work with innovative partners like Flipcash, Solflare, and R2 who are exploring the launch of Custom Stablecoins for their customers in the coming months,” said the exchange, touted among the largest in the world..
Sid Coelho-Prabhu, the head of Coinbase Business also joined Armstrong on stage to share that the exchange will be accelerating work around simplifying the cross-border moving of finances.
The year of 2025 has been a crucial year for Coinbase with its re-entry into India, partnerships with Wall Street giants like JPMorgan, and the launch of its x402 payment protocol to automate transactions in machine-to-machine commerce. However, the exchange did also encounter some legal issues.
Earlier in November, the exchange was fined for $24.7 million by the Irish central bank for having breached Ireland’s anti-money laundering rules between 2021 and 2022.