Deal (Background)
Coinbase announced the acquisition of Deribit on May 8, 2025—for roughly $2.9 billion: $700 million in cash plus 11 million Class A shares. At the time, this was the largest deal in crypto. The deal closed in August 2025; Deribit was founded in 2016 by brothers John and Marius Janssen, who left the company after the deal. By the time the deal closed, the platform had about $59 billion in open interest and a record $185 billion in trading volume for July. The deal gave Coinbase over 87% of the BTC options market and around 94% of the ETH options market. Due to COIN’s growth, the actual value of the deal at closing was estimated at approximately $4.2 billion.
What will happen to retail on September 9
The retail segment will also migrate, but without any action required from the user.
If you trade perpetual contracts through the Coinbase app or website (including Coinbase Advanced), the transition happens automatically. Externally, nothing changes—you’ll continue trading in the same place as before, but the underlying infrastructure will move to Deribit.
The mechanics are the same as for institutional traders: open positions will be closed at the current mark price, the resulting balances will be transferred to your account, and then positions will be recreated at the settlement price.
Coinbase emphasizes that no money will be lost in the process, but users may see multiple transaction records in their history, a reset of the average entry price, and a slight temporary discrepancy in PnL. There will be no fees for trading or settlements.
You can opt out: simply close all open positions and withdraw derivative collateral by the migration date.
A brief downtime of about 30 minutes will affect both Coinbase app users and existing Deribit clients.
What retail gets in return
- For the first time, Coinbase will offer linear and inverse crypto options to eligible users—including U.S. customers who have never had access to such options before. It’s specifically noted that availability of options for U.S. retail will be announced later. The BlockThe Block
- In addition, retail users will gain access to Deribit’s futures contracts, alongside Coinbase Derivatives’ CFTC-regulated futures, and a faster matching engine. The Block
- Deribit’s retail clients don’t need to do anything—their accounts, positions, sub-accounts, and settings remain untouched. They’ll receive over 125 new perpetual contracts, including options on stocks, commodities, and RWA assets like SpaceX, and spot orders will now be routed through Coinbase Exchange. The Block
- The date—September 9, 2026—depends on client readiness and regulatory approvals. Importantly, the transition is strict: there’s no provision for parallel operation of old and new endpoints.