Coinbase to Introduce Oil and Gold Futures

Coinbase Derivatives plans to expand its futures offerings beyond digital assets by adding oil and gold contracts for retail trading.

The company noted that the platform currently offers regulated CFTC derivative products based on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. Following their launch, Coinbase observed a growing demand for these instruments.

As a result, the exchange team decided to offer users trading opportunities in traditional commodities to enhance hedging capabilities.

Traders will be able to handle contracts for 10 barrels of oil (~1600 liters) and a troy ounce of precious metal (~31.1 grams). The spot prices for these volumes at the time of writing are ~$780 (American benchmark WTI) and ~$2430 respectively.

“We believe that offering our users access to futures on traditional exchange commodities like oil and gold, alongside cryptocurrencies, is a natural extension of our product line,” stated Coinbase.

Back in May, the crypto exchange experienced a system-wide outage, which reportedly did not affect user funds.

In March, Coinbase encountered delays in operations and issues with displaying client balances.