Share this article
Coinbase Applies to List Crypto Futures Products
The company filed to become a member of the National Futures Association.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated May 11, 2023, 7:05 p.m. Published Sep 15, 2021, 9:23 p.m.
Coinbase has taken the first step to try to list crypto futures products.
The San Francisco-based crypto exchange filed to become a member of the National Futures Association and register as a futures commission merchant (FCM), according to a search of the NFA website and a tweet by the company.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
“This is the next step to broaden our offerings and offer futures and derivatives trading on our platforms,” Coinbase tweeted.
Coinbase Inc. appears as “not an NFA member,” but Coinbase Financial Markets Inc. is “a pending NFA member.”
According to the NFA website, Coinbase Financial Markets’ CEO is Joseph Nikolson, who joined the exchange in 2018.
He has been a registered broker with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for over 20 years, according to FINRA’s BrokerCheck.
The NFA website makes note of Coinbase’s past run-ins with federal regulators. While Coinbase Financial Markets appears to be a relatively recent entity, Coinbase itself settled charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) earlier this year on allegations it “self-traded” digital assets and allowed a former employee to wash trade litecoin.
It’s unclear whether Coinbase has also applied for any of the necessary licenses with the CFTC, the federal regulator that oversees futures products in the U.S. The company will need different licenses from the regulator to list futures.
“We anticipate that this may be a long process to approval but are looking forward to working with the NFA as they review our application. Coinbase is excited to be taking this next step to broaden our crypto offering and further growing the crypto-economy,” an exchange spokesperson told CoinDesk.
Zack Seward and Danny Nelson contributed reporting.
UPDATE (Sept. 15, 2021, 21:47 UTC): Updated with additional information.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Pye Finance Raises $5M Seed Round Led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures
The platform aims to make locked Solana staking positions tradable via an onchain marketplace.
What to know:
- Pye Finance raised a $5 million seed round led by Variant and Coinbase Ventures, with participation from Solana Labs, Nascent and Gemini.
- The startup is building an onchain marketplace on Solana for time-locked staking positions that can be traded.
- Pye says the product targets Solana’s large pool of staked SOL, worth roughly $75 billion, and aims to give validators and stakers more flexibility over terms and reward flows.
Top Stories
