In a recent article, Fortune reported that the publicly traded U.S. exchange Coinbase planned to expand into Europe by launching a crypto derivative offering there. For this purpose it was considering the acquisition of the European branch of the FTX platform – FTX Europe. However, negotiations between Coinbase and FTX never reached the final stage.
Coinbase planned to offer crypto derivatives in the European market, per Fortune; those are complex investment tools based on the value of Bitcoin or Ethereum. They constitute a massive part of crypto trading volume.
The second half of 2023 has already shown that crypto derivates trading volume has exceeded that of spot trading by six times; this estimate is based on data provided by Kaigo Research.
Over the last few years, Coinbase and Gemini have set up exchanges in Asia to tap local markets. At the end of the summer, Coinbase also got a green light to offer cryptocurrency futures trading to U.S.-based clients. They are planning to launch them within the next few weeks, per Fortune's sources.
Until the crash of FTX in early November last year, FTX Europe was the only platform offering perpetual futures contracts in Europe since it possessed the Cypriot license from the local regulators necessary for offering that product. However, now, Europe has introduced its own new crypto regulatory rules. Documents reviewed by Fortune show that FTX Europe kept landing thousands of new users until FTX, which owned it, collapsed entirely.
Coinbase showed interest in a potential purchase of the platform in late 2022, immediately after FTX crashed. However, it no longer intends to get that deal done. Apart from Coinbase, among the candidates to buy FTX Europe was also major exchange Crypto.com.
Arman Shirinyan
Godfrey Benjamin
