According to a July 7 announcement, Coinbase has received UK authorisation to provide investment services, allowing it to add traditional financial products alongside its existing crypto offerings. The approval covers institutional and advanced traders seeking access to derivatives, including crypto, equity and commodity perpetual futures, while retail customers will be able to trade equities on Coinbase for the first time. The company said the combined regulatory approvals make it one of the most comprehensively regulated crypto firms operating in the UK, with the investment services authorisation sitting alongside its existing UK e-money license and crypto registration.
The approval supports Coinbase's long-term plan to build an 'everything exchange' where users can access multiple financial products through a single login. As reported by the company, stablecoin payments, savings, borrowing, crypto trading, derivatives and equities are expected to sit on the same platform, with tokenised real-world assets planned for the future. Within the UK business, the new investment services authorisation will operate alongside its existing e-money licence and crypto registration, with the company describing this milestone as a 'significant step' toward its comprehensive platform vision.
Coinbase cited research from the Financial Conduct Authority showing that around seven million UK adults already own crypto. The company also pointed to FCA findings that roughly one quarter of people who do not currently hold crypto would be more willing to participate if the industry operated under a clear regulatory framework. The company credited the UK government and the Financial Conduct Authority for developing what it described as a forward-looking regulatory framework for digital finance, stating that strong regulatory standards and innovation can support each other. The approval comes amid the ongoing regulatory push in Europe, with Coinbase positioning itself to capitalize on the clear legislative framework being established for the cryptocurrency industry.
The latest developments highlight an intensifying rivalry between Coinbase and Robinhood as both platforms converge on similar financial services. Robinhood recently announced tokenized equities for non-US customers this month, which Coinbase has marketed as true ownership with dividend payouts and full shareholder rights, representing a more ambitious rights package than Robinhood's debt wrapper. Robinhood has also launched Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum-compatible Layer 2 built on Arbitrum specifically for tokenized real-world assets, while Coinbase continues building international derivatives and recently absorbed Deribit. Each platform is leveraging its native advantages - Robinhood brings brokerage packaging and nearly 28 million customers, while Coinbase brings exchange liquidity, Base, and institutional rails. The strategic war between these two titans is expected to play out over the next few years, with the winner ultimately becoming a major player in global retail finance.
Crypto markets have rebounded this week, recovering much of the ground lost in the late-June selloff as the outlook for U.S. rates softened. Bitcoin started near $59,600, retook $60,000 on Wednesday, climbed above $61,800 after Thursday's payrolls report, and briefly reclaimed $63,000 over the holiday weekend before settling around $62,574, representing a gain of roughly 5% on the week. Ether outperformed, rising from about $1,570 to $1,769, close to 13%, with the higher-beta parts of the market rallying hardest and lifting total market cap back toward $2.3 trillion. Even after the bounce, Bitcoin sat just shy of where it traded in mid-June, with the recovery driven by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's comments about easing inflation risks and a weaker-than-expected June jobs report showing only 57,000 new jobs against forecasts near 115,000.
