Coinbase Files for 50-Plus Single-Stock Perpetual Futures: Nvidia, Microsoft and Tesla on a 24/5 Schedule

Coinbase has filed to list perpetual futures tied to more than 50 major United States stocks, including Nvidia, Microsoft and Tesla, in what the exchange describes as the first single-stock perpetual futures offering proposed in the country.

In a September 18 announcement, Coinbase said it had submitted the proposed contracts for listing on its regulated U.S. derivatives exchange. The products would trade 24 hours a day from Monday through Friday and carry no fixed expiration date, extending leveraged stock exposure well beyond the regular 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time equity session.

“Crypto was first, now it’s time for stocks,” the company said.

## How the Contracts Would Work

Single-stock perpetuals track the price of an individual company without conferring ownership of its shares. A trader holding an Nvidia perpetual would gain exposure to NVDA’s price movements without becoming a shareholder, receiving no voting rights or dividends through the contract. What they would get is leveraged price exposure, with position sizes larger than posted collateral, subject to the exchange’s margin rules and liquidation mechanics.

Like crypto perpetuals, the contracts would use recurring funding payments to keep their market price tethered to the underlying stock. Depending on conditions, longs may pay shorts or shorts may pay longs, and Coinbase has not yet disclosed full contract specifications, leverage limits or a launch timetable.

The listing remains subject to U.S. regulatory review, and Coinbase has not started offering the contracts. But the filing extends a clear pattern: the exchange is systematically porting the mechanics of crypto derivatives onto traditional financial instruments, using the same regulatory derivatives framework that already hosts its cryptocurrency perpetual futures.

## A Different Animal From Tokenized Stocks

The proposal lands in the middle of an industry-wide push to bring equities onto crypto rails, but perpetual futures are legally distinct from the tokenized stocks that have dominated headlines. A tokenized share, when properly structured, represents ownership or a beneficial claim backed by real securities. A perpetual future is a derivative that simply tracks price.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently argued that tokenized stocks should hold real securities and carry the rights of the underlying shares as the exchange connects global customers to a U.S. equity market he values at more than 70 trillion USD. The perpetuals filed this week would not provide that ownership model, leaving the shareholder register of the underlying companies unchanged while giving traders a leveraged contract settled under derivatives rules.

Regulators are simultaneously building the plumbing for both models. The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a transfer-agent overhaul that would allow approved blockchain systems to serve as official records of securities ownership, while Nasdaq secured SEC approval in March to trial tokenized stock trading. Coinbase’s filing sits on the derivatives side of that divide, where review focuses on the contract and the venue rather than the ownership register.

## Global Expansion Context

The single-stock perpetual filing complements a broader equity push at Coinbase. The exchange recently began rolling out 24/5 trading in nearly 4,000 U.S. stocks for eligible customers in the United Kingdom, a service offering actual shares rather than futures but following the same weekday round-the-clock schedule.

In the Middle East, Coinbase received Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market and plans to use Abu Dhabi as an international base for tokenization services outside the United States. That approval covers a separate regional operation and does not authorize the proposed U.S. contracts.

The product surface now spans spot crypto, regulated derivatives, prediction markets, tokenized stocks for non-U.S. customers through Base, and direct equity access in selected jurisdictions. The common thread is the destruction of market hours: every new product extends trading beyond the traditional session that has defined equity markets for a century.

## Competitive Race Heats Up

Coinbase is not alone in chasing single-stock exposure. Crypto.com recently registered Nadex with the SEC to offer single-stock futures on 10 reference securities including SpaceX, while Kraken has launched xStocks yield vaults and Kalshi, Polymarket and other prediction venues probe the boundaries between derivatives, forecasting and equities.

The competitive logic is straightforward. Perpetual futures are the highest-margin, highest-engagement product crypto exchanges have ever built, generating the bulk of trading volume across offshore venues. Bringing that engine to U.S. single names, inside a regulated domestic framework rather than offshore venues, would give American traders leveraged 24/5 exposure to the market’s most-watched companies without leaving the Coinbase platform.

Whether regulators bless the structure remains the open question. Until clearance arrives, the filing stands as a marker of intent: Coinbase believes the future of its derivatives business is not just crypto, but every asset class that trades, sleeps, and wakes while U.S. markets are closed.