Server infrastructure illustrating third-party crypto custody systems; not a Deribit or Coinbase facility

Deribit Is Ending Daily Proof of Reserves as Coinbase Custody Expands

By Isaac • August 29, 2026 7:24 pm • Comments

Deribit is about to remove one of the most direct transparency tools available to its customers.

Beginning September 1, the Coinbase-owned derivatives exchange will stop publishing its daily public Proof of Reserves page. The change comes as Deribit says roughly 90% of client assets have moved into Coinbase custody arrangements.

That does not mean Deribit has a reserve shortfall. It does mean customers will lose a daily, public way to check whether their balances were included in the exchange’s liabilities and compare those liabilities with disclosed wallet holdings.

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In its official notice, Deribit said the removal is part of a wallet-infrastructure overhaul during its integration with Coinbase. The exchange described daily Proof of Reserves as a voluntary transparency measure introduced in 2022, when confidence in centralized exchanges was under intense pressure.

Deribit said the page will disappear September 1 while independent reserve audits continue twice a year and audited financial statements remain available to clients and counterparties on request. It also said the change does not alter how client assets are protected, framing the move as a reporting and infrastructure change rather than a reduction in reserve obligations.

The practical tradeoff is clear: customers retain access to periodic professional assurance, but lose a public daily check they could run without asking Deribit for a document. The notice does not announce a replacement dashboard or another account-level verification tool.

The distinction matters. A regulatory audit and a customer-verifiable Merkle proof are not the same product.

Deribit’s current system creates a daily snapshot using a privacy-preserving binary Merkle tree. Customers receive a unique proof identifier that lets them locate hashed entries tied to their balances without exposing the underlying account data.

Anyone can also total the published liabilities and compare them with the wallets Deribit lists.

CryptoSlate reported that the public snapshot was already narrower than Deribit’s entire custody footprint. Deribit’s methodology excludes assets held with some third-party custodians because they are outside the exchange’s direct control.

The notice does not clearly establish whether every Coinbase-held asset was already outside the daily proof.

That ambiguity is one reason the custody migration deserves close attention. Deribit identifies Coinbase at the brand level, but its public disclosures do not specify the exact Coinbase legal entity holding every migrated asset.

Coinbase is simultaneously pushing deeper into regulated derivatives. Its ownership of Deribit gives that expansion a major global options platform, while products such as the new US500 futures contract show the company trying to bring crypto-style market mechanics into additional regulated venues.

That broader strategy makes custody and transparency more important, not less. As platforms combine, customers need to know which entity holds assets, which controls apply, and what evidence they can inspect themselves.

Deribit says clients and counterparties will still be able to request audited financial statements and other due-diligence material. Those documents can be valuable, but they are less frequent and less directly testable than a public daily proof.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority still imposes substantial requirements on Deribit FZE. Under VARA’s reserve rules, covered firms must keep reserve assets equal to at least 100% of client liabilities, hold them one-to-one in the same asset, reconcile balances daily and obtain an independent reserve audit at least every six months.

Separate audit rules require annual financial statements, while regulatory-reporting rules require firms to submit wallet addresses monthly and financial-compliance statements quarterly. Those controls remain in place after the public page disappears.

Still, regulator-facing evidence is not identical to public verification. A customer who can test balance inclusion every day has a different level of visibility from one who must wait for an audit or request private due-diligence documents.

Deribit’s third-party provider list names Coinbase for custody and self-custody technology, alongside other vendors that support exchange operations. The list identifies the service at a company level, but it does not spell out the legal entity, wallet structure or exact allocation for every client asset moved during the integration.

Deribit’s membership terms permit the exchange to hold assets directly or use third-party custodians. They require client assets to remain segregated from company property, preserve clients’ legal title and state that a third-party custodian is responsible for the custody service it provides.

Those contractual protections explain how custody can move without transferring ownership to Deribit or Coinbase. They do not replace the daily public proof, which answered a different question: whether a customer could independently confirm balance inclusion against a current snapshot.

Those protections are meaningful. The unanswered question is whether Deribit will replace the retired page with another public tool that gives customers comparable, account-level assurance.


Coinbase’s case for faster derivatives innovation is straightforward. The trust side of that argument requires equally clear evidence about where customer assets sit and how outsiders can verify them.

The September 1 change should not be treated as proof of insolvency. It should be treated as a measurable reduction in public transparency.

Deribit will still have reserve, segregation, reconciliation and audit duties. Customers will simply have fewer tools to check the exchange’s work for themselves each day.

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