Coinbase wins Australia license to add futures, options, stocks

Coinbase has secured an Australian Financial Services License, clearing the way for the exchange to expand in Australia into derivatives, stock trading and payments. The company expects to launch crypto and equity perpetual contracts first.

John O’Loghlen, regional managing director for Asia-Pacific, indicated the license creates a path to add listed futures, options and other traditional financial products. This shift could reshape how a Coinbase review frames the platform, with more focus on building an “everything exchange” that brings digital assets and traditional markets onto one platform.

Holding an AFSL places Coinbase under Australian standards for conduct, disclosure, governance and consumer protection that apply to established financial services providers. The authorization aligns the exchange’s local operations with rules that govern brokerages and payments firms.

Australia’s crypto legislation is advancing in parallel. The Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 passed both houses of Parliament on April 1 and is awaiting royal assent. The law is set to take effect 12 months after assent.

“Thoughtful regulation is good for customers, good for the industry and good for Australia’s ambition to be a leading digital economy in the Asia-Pacific region,” O’Loghlen noted. “We’re going to compete with traditional financial services on stock trading, payments and other TradFi products with the speed and execution of crypto,” he added.

Coinbase is expanding its local team alongside the license. The company has made senior hires across legal, compliance, marketing and operations in Australia as it prepares to roll out new services.

Adoption data point to a sizable local user base. Independent Reserve’s Cryptocurrency Index estimates that 33% of Australians had exposure to crypto in 2026, up from 31% in 2025, in a country of more than 27.7 million people. The index also found more people using crypto to pay for goods and services than a year earlier.

In September, Coinbase and OKX introduced services for self-managed superannuation funds, giving individuals another way to allocate a portion of retirement savings to digital assets. Australia’s total superannuation assets were estimated at about 4.5 trillion Australian dollars ($3.1 trillion) at the end of the third quarter of 2025.

Regulatory oversight has tightened across the sector. Authorities fined the local unit of Binance AU$6.9 million over client onboarding failures.