Coinbase said Wednesday it is adding perpetual futures to Base App, giving eligible users leverage of up to 50x through Hyperliquid. The integration opens more than 290 perpetual markets inside the wallet.
The Big Picture
- Coinbase is adding leveraged perpetual futures to Base App for eligible users, with Hyperliquid handling execution.
- Base App users get more than 290 perpetual markets, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, tokenized stocks and commodities.
- Orders route to an outside protocol, so the liquidity and the matching sit with a venue Coinbase does not run.
- Coinbase puts perps at roughly 75% of all crypto trading volume today, well ahead of spot.
- Traders in the U.S., UK and Canada are excluded, along with other jurisdictions that restrict leveraged derivatives.
Coinbase keeps the interface and hands execution to Hyperliquid
Coinbase supplies the trading surface; Hyperliquid’s protocol matches and settles every order behind it. That split matters for anyone reading the launch as a Coinbase derivatives product, because the counterparty exposure, the liquidity and the uptime all belong to a protocol Coinbase does not operate.
Chintan Turakhia, Coinbase’s head of engineering, described the choice as a liquidity call. He said:
What traders get, and where it breaks?
Base App users can trade more than 290 perpetual pairs around the clock, from Bitcoin and Ethereum to markets tied to stocks and commodities, at leverage of up to 50x depending on the asset. Perpetuals carry no expiry date, which is what separates them from dated futures.
Leverage runs both directions. Coinbase says a position can be liquidated once losses pass certain thresholds, and the top leverage tier covers only part of the market list, so the ceiling advertised in the launch is a maximum and not a default.
The pivot that produced this launch
Coinbase rebranded its wallet as Base App a year ago and pitched it as an everything app: trading, social feeds, messaging, AI tools and creator monetization in one place. The social half underdelivered. Jesse Pollak, who created Base, stepped back from leading the app in July after conceding the push into social and creator coins had not produced the adoption he expected, writing on X that the bet on builders was right and the bet on social was wrong.
Pollak pointed to prediction markets, perpetuals and stablecoins as the features actually driving usage, with Base narrowing its focus to trading, payments and AI agents. Perps now sit alongside the stock trading and prediction markets Coinbase has already folded into the app.
What Coinbase has not disclosed?
The announcement establishes that Base App will route perps to Hyperliquid and names the leverage ceiling. It does not establish the commercial terms, and four things stay open:
- Which assets carry the top leverage tier and which ones cap lower?
- How fees or revenue are divided between Coinbase and Hyperliquid?
- Whether Coinbase or the protocol holds margin while a position is open?
- The full list of restricted jurisdictions beyond the three Coinbase named.
Anyone already trading inside Base App can check which entity holds margin on an open position, confirm whether their jurisdiction is gated before funding an account, and read the liquidation threshold on each asset, since the advertised maximum does not apply across every market.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
The launch reads as a distribution move. Coinbase is renting a derivatives venue rather than building one, which puts a full perpetuals order book in front of Base App users without the exchange absorbing the matching engine, the market-making or the licensing load that a leveraged product carries in regulated markets. Hyperliquid picks up order flow from one of the largest retail funnels in crypto, and Coinbase keeps the customer at the interface layer.
The geography explains the rest. Access is closed in the U.S., UK and Canada, the markets where Coinbase’s brand and regulatory footprint are strongest, so the users this feature can actually reach sit almost entirely outside its home base. Turakhia’s framing of perps as the bulk of crypto trading volume shows the pull: a wallet with no leverage competes for the smaller share of activity. Whether routed third-party liquidity holds the users Base lost on the social bet is a different question, and Base App’s trading volume will answer it before any announcement does.
