Crypto Meets Wall Street: Platforms Converge in Both Directions
The lines between traditional finance and cryptocurrency are rapidly blurring as platforms converge in both directions. For retail traders, this shift is marked by the disappearance of the distinction between a crypto account and a brokerage account.
Coinbase has been at the forefront of this convergence, moving beyond spot trading to offer derivatives, prediction markets, stablecoin payments, tokenized assets, equity-linked products, and single-stock perpetual futures. The company recently filed with the CFTC to offer perpetual futures on roughly 50-60 US stocks, including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and Nvidia.
Coinbase's Q2 2026 results show the extent of its diversification: prediction market revenue more than doubled quarter-on-quarter, while average USDC balances on the platform reached $20 billion. Non-BTC spot trading now accounts for 88% of net revenue.