Coinbase Sets Stage for December 17 Rollout of Prediction Market and Tokenized Stocks – Report
Crypto exchange giant Coinbase is reportedly gearing up to launch two major new products on December 17: its own prediction market and a suite of tokenized equities. The planned debut, described in a Thursday report from Bloomberg, would mark one of the company’s most ambitious expansions beyond traditional spot and derivatives trading.
While Coinbase has floated the idea of moving into both prediction markets and tokenized securities in the past, the firm has yet to make an official public announcement. Nonetheless, recent interface screenshots circulating online suggest internal testing is already underway. In those images, Coinbase’s prediction tools appear to be powered by infrastructure from Kalshi, a regulated prediction market platform, hinting at a potential partnership or underlying service arrangement.
When previously asked about those early leaks, Coinbase representatives declined to comment directly on the products themselves and instead directed attention to a livestreamed event scheduled for December 17. The company framed that broadcast as a venue for unveiling “new experiences” for customers, fueling speculation that this will be the stage for officially introducing both prediction markets and tokenized equities. Coinbase did not immediately comment following the latest report.
The timing of this move is significant. Real-money prediction markets—platforms where users wager on outcomes of future events like elections, economic indicators, sports, or policy decisions—have seen a notable surge in activity and scrutiny this year. Aggregate trading volumes across the sector have climbed to tens of billions of dollars year-to-date, underscoring growing demand from retail traders, data enthusiasts, and professional hedgers alike.
Prediction markets sit at the intersection of speculation and information discovery. In theory, prices on these markets reflect the collective probability assigned by participants to particular outcomes, making them a sort of real-time sentiment and forecasting tool. For a company like Coinbase, which already sits on deep liquidity, a massive user base, and robust compliance infrastructure, adding such markets could turn its platform into an even more comprehensive hub for financial decision‑making.
Tokenized equities represent the other major pillar of the reported launch. These are digital tokens that mirror the value of traditional stocks—such as large cap tech firms, blue‑chip companies, or exchange‑traded funds—while trading on a blockchain. Depending on the setup, they may be backed 1:1 by underlying shares held by a custodian, or synthetically replicated via financial instruments designed to track price movements.
For users, tokenized stocks promise some clear advantages:
– The ability to trade around the clock, rather than being tied to standard stock market hours.
– Fractional ownership, allowing small investors to gain exposure to expensive shares with modest capital.
– Potentially faster settlement and easier movement of value between crypto assets and equity‑like exposure.
For Coinbase, adding tokenized equities would be a significant step toward becoming a hybrid venue that blends elements of a traditional brokerage with a crypto exchange. It would also put the company in closer competition with other platforms experimenting with tokenized securities, though Coinbase’s scale, branding, and regulatory posture could give it a relative edge if it executes carefully.
However, both business lines raise non‑trivial regulatory issues. Prediction markets have repeatedly come under the lens of financial watchdogs, particularly when contracts resemble unregistered event-based derivatives or cross into the territory of gambling laws. Meanwhile, tokenized equities directly touch securities regulation, custody rules, and cross‑border market access. Coinbase, already in multiple high‑profile disputes with regulators over crypto asset classifications, will need to structure these products carefully, possibly limiting access by geography or investor type at launch.
Another open question is how deeply Kalshi—or any third‑party provider—will be integrated into Coinbase’s prediction offering. If Kalshi’s infrastructure is indeed powering the markets, Coinbase could position the product as a simple, user-friendly interface layered on top of a regulated prediction venue. That would allow Coinbase to leverage existing licensing and compliance work rather than rebuilding everything from scratch, while still controlling branding, user experience, and distribution to its tens of millions of customers.
From a user’s perspective, a Coinbase‑hosted prediction market could dramatically lower the barrier to entry. Many prediction platforms today require specialized onboarding, separate deposits, or unfamiliar interfaces. Embedding such markets directly into an app that millions already use for Bitcoin and Ethereum trading could drive adoption quickly and bring prediction markets closer to mainstream acceptance.
The reported launch also fits into a broader strategic push by Coinbase to diversify its revenue away from simple spot trading fees. As markets mature and competition intensifies, exchanges are increasingly looking to higher‑margin, more differentiated products: staking, derivatives, institutional services, and now event markets and tokenized assets. If successful, prediction and tokenized equity trading could become meaningful new revenue streams through fees on trades, spreads, and listing partnerships.
There is also a strong data angle. Prediction markets generate a continuous stream of crowd‑sourced probability estimates across politics, macroeconomics, corporate earnings, and more. Coinbase could, in time, transform this data into analytics products, dashboards, or premium research for advanced users and institutions, adding another layer to its business. Tokenized equity flows, likewise, could provide insight into investor behavior at the intersection of traditional finance and crypto.
For traders, the convergence of these products on a single platform opens up new strategic combinations. A user could, for example, hedge a portfolio of tokenized tech stocks with positions in prediction markets about interest rate decisions, elections, or regulatory rulings that might affect those companies. Sophisticated participants could build more complex cross‑asset strategies that previously required multiple brokers and platforms.
Of course, execution risk remains. Coinbase will need to address:
– Jurisdictional access: which countries can legally access prediction contracts and tokenized equities.
– Tax treatment: how gains and losses on event contracts and tokenized stocks will be reported and classified.
– Market integrity: safeguards against manipulation, especially in politically sensitive or low‑liquidity markets.
– Education: explaining to retail users how prediction probabilities work, how tokenized stocks differ from underlying shares, and what risks are involved.
If Coinbase succeeds in navigating these hurdles, December 17 could mark a turning point, both for the company and for the wider integration of crypto rails with real‑world markets. By tying together digital assets, event‑based forecasting, and equity‑like instruments under one roof, Coinbase is positioning itself not just as a crypto exchange, but as a broader marketplace for trading on information, sentiment, and traditional financial value—all within a familiar crypto-native interface.
Investors and observers will be watching the December livestream closely to see how much of this vision Coinbase is ready to roll out from day one, which geographies will be included, and how aggressively the company intends to scale these new products in 2025 and beyond.