Coinbase expands 24/5 US stock trading for UK users, using USDC as the settlement “bridge”

Coinbase said it has launched 24/5 US stock trading for users in the United Kingdom, using USDC as the on-chain payment and settlement mechanism the company described as its bridge between crypto infrastructure and Wall Street market activity. The announcement was published after Coinbase had previously rolled out similar trading access features in other contexts, but this update is aimed specifically at UK-based retail customers, according to the report.

The framing is designed to make US equities tradeable outside conventional US market windows, reflecting a broader industry shift toward “always-on” market access for retail. Instead of limiting activity to standard exchange hours, Coinbase’s offering supports trading through a schedule that is effectively continuous five days per week, with trading running 24 hours a day for most of that period.

Coinbase also leaned on familiar retail-friendly hooks in its pitch. The report says Coinbase’s US stock trading for UK users comes with zero commission pricing and a £1 minimum investment level for fractional shares. Fractional shares let customers buy partial ownership of a stock, lowering the dollar amounts needed to start building a position.

A key part of the product’s positioning is how trades are funded and processed. The report describes USDC as the “concrete” that connects the systems, implying that Coinbase uses the stablecoin as a digital dollar substitute to move value during the trading workflow. USDC is a dollar-linked stablecoin intended to hold a near one-to-one value with the US dollar, and in this context it is presented as the mechanism that allows equity trading to run using crypto-native settlement rails.

From a market-structure perspective, the concept matters because it shifts how retail investors experience US equity trading. Traditional brokerage models typically rely on bank and clearing processes tied to exchange schedules. By contrast, a 24/5 format paired with crypto-settlement rails can reduce friction for customers who expect digital asset workflows to behave more continuously, even when they are trading conventional stocks.

For Coinbase, the product also reinforces its strategy of expanding beyond being a spot crypto exchange. The company, which trades the cryptocurrency exchange token on Nasdaq under the ticker COIN, has spent years trying to become a broader “on-ramp” for finance services. Adding equities access in a stablecoin-enabled format is one way to keep users in a Coinbase ecosystem rather than routing them to separate brokerage accounts.

Still, some details are not spelled out in the available report. For example, it does not provide granular information on how Coinbase matches trades, how price discovery behaves during extended hours, what the effective spreads look like relative to US exchange benchmarks, or whether there are any limitations by stock. The extent of regulatory approvals, custody approach, and the operational guardrails for stablecoin-backed settlement are also not described in the brief summary available here.

Looking ahead, investors and market participants may focus on two questions: whether the 24/5 trading experience improves liquidity and execution quality for UK retail traders, and how regulators and market operators view stablecoin settlement tied to equity trading. Coinbase’s next disclosures, including any operational documents or investor materials that quantify adoption and performance, will likely determine whether this is a marketing milestone or a durable change in retail market access.