Coinbase Base App and Hyperliquid connected for perpetual futures markets

Coinbase Just Put One of Crypto’s Riskiest Trades Inside Base App

By Isaac • August 19, 2026 3:18 pm • Comments

Coinbase is putting one of crypto’s most aggressive trading products directly inside Base App.

The company is adding perpetual futures through Hyperliquid, giving eligible users access to more than 290 markets without leaving the app. Depending on the asset, leverage can run as high as 50x.

That is a major expansion of what Base App is trying to become. It is also the kind of feature that can magnify a good trade, wipe out a position in minutes, and pull a much wider group of users into the fastest-growing corner of crypto trading.

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Decrypt reported that the rollout covers perpetual markets tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum, along with tokenized stocks and commodities. The product will run around the clock, with Hyperliquid handling execution behind the scenes.

Users stay inside Base App and keep control of their wallet. They do not need to move into a separate exchange interface to reach Hyperliquid’s liquidity and trading engine.

Perpetual futures, usually shortened to “perps,” let traders bet on whether an asset will rise or fall without owning it. Unlike ordinary futures contracts, they do not have an expiration date.

That convenience comes with a sharp edge. Leverage allows a trader to control a position much larger than the cash supporting it.

A relatively small move in the right direction can produce an outsized gain. A move the other way can trigger liquidation and close the trade automatically.

At 50x leverage, the room for error is extremely small. The headline number will attract power users, but it should not be mistaken for a normal spot-trading feature.

Coinbase Head of Engineering Chintan Turakhia told Decrypt that perpetuals now account for roughly 75% of all crypto trading volume. He also described them as the single most requested feature among Base App’s power users.

That demand explains the move. Coinbase spent years building its reputation around a regulated, relatively simple gateway into crypto.

Hyperliquid built its momentum around fast, onchain derivatives trading. This integration brings those two worlds much closer together.

It also reflects a broader reset for Base App.

The product was pitched as an “everything app” after Coinbase rebranded its wallet, combining trading with social features, messaging, creator tools, and AI. But the social push did not create the adoption its builders expected.

Base creator Jesse Pollak later acknowledged that the team had made the wrong bet on social. Trading, payments, stablecoins, prediction markets, and AI agents proved more compelling.

Perpetual futures fit that new focus almost perfectly. They bring in active traders, generate repeat usage, and turn Base App into more than a place to hold or swap tokens.

The market context makes the partnership even more notable.

CoinGecko ranked Hyperliquid’s HYPE token tenth by market capitalization in a live August 19 readback. Bitcoin remained first and Ethereum second.

At that readback, HYPE traded near $69.19 with a market value of roughly $15.4 billion. It had gained about 19% over 24 hours on approximately $892 million in reported trading volume.

The ranking does not measure the safety of any leveraged trade, and token performance is not the same thing as protocol revenue or liquidity. It does show that Hyperliquid has moved well beyond a fringe derivatives experiment.

Coinbase is connecting Base App to a protocol whose own token has already reached crypto’s top tier. The market value also gives the partnership a different weight than an integration with a small or untested venue.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are especially important to the launch because they remain the two largest crypto assets and are among the markets Base App users will be able to trade. The combination gives Hyperliquid access to Coinbase distribution while giving Coinbase a direct route into the derivatives volume it has been missing.

The launch is not global. According to Decrypt, the perpetual-futures product is unavailable in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and other jurisdictions that restrict leveraged crypto derivatives.

That restriction matters. Coinbase’s name may make the feature feel familiar, but local eligibility rules still apply, and the underlying risk does not change because the trade appears inside a polished consumer app.

For Hyperliquid, the deal offers distribution. It places the protocol’s execution layer in front of users who may never have opened Hyperliquid directly.

For Coinbase, it is a bet that the next phase of Base App will be driven less by social feeds and more by the financial products crypto users already trade at scale.

The real test will not be whether traders want perpetuals. The volume says they already do.

The test is whether Coinbase can make those markets easier to reach without making their risks easier to overlook.

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