Coinbase Lets UK Users Trade US Stocks While Wall Street Sleeps

Coinbase began rolling out US stock trading to eligible UK users today (Thursday), giving them access to buy, sell, and manage close to 4,000 US equities from within the same app used for crypto and fiat holdings. The company said access would expand progressively to all UK users.

Trades carry zero commission, support fractional shares, and can be started with as little as £1. Users can fund trades with either GBP or USDC, and Coinbase said its stablecoin balances can be used directly for stock purchases.

Trading hours are set at 24 hours a day, five days a week, extending beyond the standard hours of US exchanges such as the NYSE and Nasdaq.

Coinbase framed the move as part of closing the gap between how investors manage traditional assets and digital assets, describing its long-term goal as building an "Everything Exchange" covering crypto, stocks, derivatives, savings, and borrowing on one platform.

Part of a Broader Push Beyond Crypto

The stock trading launch follows a July 2026 authorization from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority that allowed Coinbase to offer investment services beyond crypto for the first time. That authorization let Coinbase begin building out equities, derivatives, stablecoin payments, savings and borrowing products on one platform, with tokenized real-world assets planned for later.

The approval also opened derivatives access, including crypto, equity and commodity perpetual futures, to institutional and advanced traders.

Stock trading is the latest addition to a UK product lineup Coinbase has been assembling over the past year. In November 2025, the exchange launched a GBP savings account through a partnership with ClearBank, initially paying 3.75% AER with FSCS protection, positioning it as a direct competitor to Revolut's savings product.

In April 2026, Coinbase added a crypto-backed borrowing product built on the DeFi lending protocol Morpho, letting UK users borrow USDC against Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings through an on-chain smart contract rather than a Coinbase balance sheet.

A Single Window Platform for All Is the Trend

Coinbase is not the only platform combining stocks and crypto for UK retail users. eToro has offered stocks, ETFs, commodities, and cryptocurrencies through a single account for years, alongside social and copy-trading features that Coinbase does not offer. Coinbase's approach has instead centered on securing regulatory approvals ahead of product launches, a strategy the company has also pursued in other markets.

The timing of Coinbase's UK expansion sits ahead of the country's broader crypto regulatory framework, which is not due to take full legal effect until October 25, 2027, with firms able to begin applying for licenses under that regime in late 2026.

By securing investment services authorization now, Coinbase has been able to offer regulated stock trading before that framework, and before competitors still working through their own applications, come into force.

Coinbase said it expects increased access to US equities to lift UK retail participation in stock investing, citing survey data it says shows UK retail investors trailing their US counterparts in stock ownership. The company, however, has not published the underlying survey data.