Coinbase Enters Prediction Markets Through Kalshi Partnership as Rivalry With Robinhood Intensifies

As many in the market anticipated, cryptocurrency brokerage Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: COIN) confirmed on Wednesday that it is moving into prediction markets through a partnership with Kalshi. Speculation around Coinbase’s plans to offer prediction-style contracts has circulated for months and gathered pace last week ahead of an event held earlier today. Event contracts now form part of a wider strategic push by the company, which also includes tokenized equities, aimed at broadening its offering beyond digital assets and positioning itself as a comprehensive financial platform for investors.

Announcing the initiative, the California-based firm said: “Today, we’re taking a major new step toward becoming the Everything Exchange – dramatically expanding the assets available to trade on Coinbase, including novel cryptocurrencies, stocks¹, perpetual futures, and prediction markets.”

By entering the prediction markets space, Coinbase joins a growing list of platforms offering yes/no derivatives, including crypto brokerage competitors Crypto.com and Gemini Space Station (NASDAQ: GEMI). It also steps into more direct competition with Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ: HOOD), which has evolved into a major digital asset trading venue alongside its traditional brokerage services.

Given its strong following among retail cryptocurrency traders, Coinbase is widely viewed as a natural entrant into prediction markets. Many of its users are already familiar with yes/no contracts, sports betting, or both. The company said its suite of event contracts will span a broad range of categories, including culture, finance, politics and sports.

These prediction products will be powered by Kalshi, which also stands to gain from the collaboration as it deepens its connections with the crypto ecosystem. Beyond Coinbase, Kalshi already maintains partnerships with large brokerage platforms such as Robinhood and Webull.

As it outlined its expanded asset lineup and prediction market ambitions, Coinbase highlighted ease of use, noting that customers will be able to trade on political outcomes and sporting events within the same platform they already use to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and stocks. The company suggested that further growth in this area is likely. “A wider marketplace for predictions creates an avenue for more informed trading activity, and we plan to support contracts from additional prediction market platforms in the coming months,” Coinbase said.

The move also sharpens the competitive dynamic between Coinbase and Robinhood, both of which are pushing further into event-based contracts. Coinbase’s announcement came just one day after Robinhood unveiled a notable expansion of its own event contracts offering, including football parlays and player proposition bets. Some analysts believe Robinhood may ultimately benefit more from the trend.

“We expect a bigger percentage revenue benefit to HOOD vs. COIN given that the survey showed that users on that platform are more inclined to fund prediction markets portfolio with fresh money,” wrote Mizuho analysts Dan Dolev and Alexander Jenkins.

They pointed to findings from a Mizuho survey showing that 50% of Robinhood users are likely to deploy new capital into prediction markets, compared with 37% of Coinbase customers, who are expected to sell existing cryptocurrency holdings to finance event contract trades.

The same survey produced an unexpected insight into user preferences. Respondents indicated they were more inclined to trade contracts tied to economic events, at 81%, and political outcomes, at 49%, than sports-related events, at 47%. This contrasts with a range of other data suggesting that sports-focused event contracts remain the most actively traded products on exchanges such as Kalshi.

By fLEXI tEAM