Coinbase just unveiled its “System Update,” a sweeping product expansion that includes Coinbase Advisor [one of the world’s first Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered artificial intelligence (AI)-powered investment advisors] alongside tokenized stocks, options trading, and AI agents capable of executing trades autonomously. The announcements mark Coinbase’s most aggressive push yet toward becoming an “everything exchange” for crypto, stocks, derivatives, and financial services.
Coinbase Advisor: Professional guidance, AI-powered
Coinbase Advisor is the standout feature of the update. It’s an AI assistant built right into the app that’s registered with both the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to provide personalized investment tips. Right now, Coinbase One members in the U.S. can use it to look at their portfolios and get ideas for tax-loss harvesting, trading different assets, and diversifying. Max Branzburg, the head of consumer products at Coinbase, mentioned in an interview, “It’ll tell you exactly what to sell and what to buy.”
The advisor doesn’t make trades on its own, but it does give specific strategies based on your own goals and how much risk you’re comfortable with. Coinbase is basically trying to bring professional financial advice (something usually reserved for the pros and the ultra-wealthy) to everyone.
This is all part of a bigger move into AI, including “Coinbase for Agents,” which lets AI models like ChatGPT and Claude trade within limits you set using the x402 payments protocol.
Tokenized stocks: Real ownership, onchain
The crypto exchange is rolling out “the first real, 1:1 backed tokenized stocks,” which aren’t just derivatives or “I owe you” (IOUs). These are real tokenized shares that come with automatic dividends and redemption rights. The product is built on Coinbase Tokenize and runs on Base and will initially be available to non-U.S. customers next month.
“No derivatives, no IOUs,” the company and CEO Brian Armstrong emphasized, directly rejecting the synthetic structures that defined prior tokenized stock attempts. International investors will be able to trade U.S. stocks 24/7, use shares as collateral, and even gift them like crypto. It’s a big deal for the millions of people who usually can’t get into the U.S. stock market.
Options, perps, and prediction markets
Coinbase is also rolling out options trading for both crypto and stocks, unified through its acquisition of Deribit. New thematic perpetual futures tied to AI, China, Defense, and Tech 100 indices are now available, alongside pre-IPO (Initial Public Offering) perps for SpaceX, with Anthropic and OpenAI expected to follow.
The exchange is also expanding its prediction markets with crypto binaries [15-minute “up or down” contracts on Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL)] and “combos” that bundle multiple predictions into a single trade.
Moreover, users can now transfer existing stock portfolios from other brokerages and trade nearly every major U.S. stock, index, and exchange-traded fund (ETF) commission-free through Coinbase Advanced.
All of these updates are just some of the latest developments the firm has been working on, trying to achieve its “all-in-one-app” goal to capitalize on the crypto market as well as traditional finance (TradFi) and new innovative products.
