The Coinbase Derivatives platform will expand the futures offer beyond digital assets by adding contracts for oil and gold for retail trading.
The company noted that CFTC-regulated derivative products based on bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Dogecoin are available on the platform. After their launch, Coinbase drew attention to the growing demand for these tools.
Therefore, the exchange team decided to offer users trading opportunities for traditional commodities to expand hedging opportunities.
Traders will have the opportunity to operate contracts for 10 barrels of oil (~1600 liters) and for a troy ounce of precious metal (~31.1 g). Spot prices for these volumes at the time of writing are ~$780 (the American reference brand WTI) and ~$2,430, respectively.
"We believe that offering our users access to futures for traditional exchange—traded commodities like oil and gold, along with cryptocurrencies, is a natural extension of our product line," Coinbase said.
Recall that on May 14, the crypto exchange experienced a system-wide failure, which, according to assurances, did not affect user funds.
In March, Coinbase faced transaction delays and problems reflecting customer balances.