Coinbase will transfer institutional clients’ International Exchange accounts, balances and open positions to Deribit on Sept. 9, consolidating its global derivatives operations onto a single trading venue. The company expects trading to be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes while it cancels orders, settles positions, transfers balances and rebuilds those positions on Deribit.
Key Takeaways
- Coinbase will migrate institutional International Exchange accounts, balances and open positions to Deribit on Sept. 9, 2026.
- Institutions that decline the migration must close their positions and accounts before the Aug. 28 opt out deadline.
- Coinbase will cancel open orders, crystallize profit and loss, transfer balances and recreate positions at the same settlement prices.
- Existing International Exchange API keys and margin loans will not transfer, requiring clients to make technical and financing changes.
- Coinbase expects approximately 30 minutes of downtime, although every announced date remains subject to change.
What Happened?
Coinbase confirmed Sept. 9 as the planned migration date for institutional clients using Coinbase International Exchange.
Accounts remaining open after Aug. 28 will be treated as having accepted the updated terms and migration. Institutions that do not want to participate must close their positions and International Exchange accounts before that deadline.
Coinbase expects to provision the new Deribit subaccounts in a read only state on Aug. 31. Clients can use that period to confirm account mappings, generate new API credentials, request withdrawal or position limits and test their access before trading moves to Deribit.
The migration is expected to take approximately 30 minutes, during which institutions will be unable to trade or modify their positions. Coinbase cautioned that the dates and estimated downtime could change. Coinbase’s institutional migration FAQ lists Aug. 28, Aug. 31 and Sept. 9 as the primary milestones.
Coinbase to Shift Institutional Clients to Deribit, World’s Largest Crypto Options Exchange
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 4, 2026
Coinbase plans to migrate institutional clients’ International Exchange accounts, balances and positions to Deribit on September 9, with trading expected to pause for about 30 minutes.… pic.twitter.com/Zf10yITgEB
Coinbase Will Settle and Recreate Positions
Coinbase will cancel every open International Exchange order when the migration begins.
Existing positions will be settled at the venue’s mark price, crystallizing profit and loss and paying any accrued funding. The resulting balances will then be transferred into the corresponding Deribit subaccounts.
Coinbase plans to recreate each position at the same settlement price through matched migration trades. These administrative entries will appear as block trades labeled “Migration” in clients’ Deribit trading histories.
Coinbase International Exchange and Deribit will price their markets independently before the cutover. Consequently, institutions could see immediate unrealized gains or losses if Deribit’s market price differs from the settlement price when trading resumes.
Coinbase said this difference would reflect market movement during the downtime, rather than a migration charge or additional realized loss. The company will not impose trading or settlement fees for the transfer itself.
Institutions Must Replace APIs and Close Margin Loans
Existing Coinbase International Exchange API keys will not work on Deribit. Institutions must create new Deribit credentials and update their endpoints before the Sept. 9 cutover.
Deribit provides REST API, WebSocket, FIX and SBE connectivity for institutional accounts. Coinbase’s separate Advanced Trade migration will use a Deribit powered JSON-RPC 2.0 gateway, making it important for clients to follow the technical instructions associated with their specific account type.
Coinbase International Exchange APIs should remain available for approximately 12 months after migration, but only for retrieving historical trade and order information. That history will not automatically appear inside Deribit.
Institutions needing records for regulatory reporting, taxes or audits should save their International Exchange data before migration.
Existing margin loans will also remain behind and must be closed before the cutover. Migrated accounts will initially use Deribit’s Cross Standard Margin system, although other standard and portfolio margin models will be available depending on the client’s trading strategy and agreements.
Trading Fees and Settlement Rules Will Change
Coinbase will use each institution’s International Exchange trading volume to establish its opening Deribit fee tier. Subsequent tiers will be calculated using Deribit’s rolling 30 day trading volume.
Regular trading fees will follow Deribit’s fee schedule after the migration, even though the migration itself is free.
Settlement mechanics will also change. International Exchange perpetual contracts currently settle every five minutes, while Deribit realizes session profit and loss once daily at 08:00 UTC. Funding will accrue continuously and settle as part of the daily process.
Deribit will also give migrated institutional clients access to its listed crypto options, including contracts involving Bitcoin and Ether, subject to eligibility and jurisdictional restrictions.
Legal Arrangements Will Depend on Account Setup
The migration will not give every institution the same custody and counterparty structure.
Clients that currently use only Coinbase International Exchange will generally retain Coinbase Bermuda Limited as their broker and custodian, with orders routed to Deribit for execution.
Institutions already trading directly on both platforms may retain Coinbase Bermuda as custodian while using Deribit FZE as the trading counterparty. Some clients using outside custodians will instead move their trading relationship to Deribit Panama.
Coinbase said account managers will provide additional instructions when a client’s existing entity, jurisdiction or custody arrangement requires further action.
CoinLaw’s Takeaway
Coinbase completed its acquisition of Deribit on Aug. 14, 2025, after agreeing to a transaction valued at approximately $2.9 billion. The consideration initially included $700 million in cash and 11 million Coinbase shares, subject to final adjustments.
At closing, Deribit had approximately $60 billion in open interest and processed more than $185 billion in July 2025 trading volume, according to Coinbase. The company described Deribit as the largest crypto options exchange by volume and open interest. Coinbase’s acquisition announcement confirmed those figures.
The institutional migration brings liquidity previously divided between International Exchange and Deribit into one global derivatives venue. Coinbase expects the consolidation to expand product coverage and simplify its international derivatives infrastructure.
For participating institutions, the immediate priorities are confirming Deribit access, preserving historical records, replacing API integrations, closing margin loans and preparing for the estimated Sept. 9 trading interruption.
