Coinbase Launches Custom Stablecoins, Partners with Kalshi to Bring Prediction Markets Onchain

Key Takeaways:

• Coinbase launched Custom Stablecoins, enabling companies to issue branded stablecoins backed by assets like USDC.
• Coinbase partners with Kalshi to roll out regulated prediction markets directly inside the Coinbase app.
• The launches strengthen Coinbase’s push to become an “Everything Exchange” spanning crypto, payments, and onchain financial products.

Coinbase is accelerating its shift beyond a crypto-only exchange. By launching Custom Stablecoins and partnering with Kalshi to introduce prediction markets, the company is expanding into onchain payments and real-world event trading under one unified platform.

Coinbase Launches Custom Stablecoins for Onchain Payments

Branded Stablecoins as a New Business Primitive

Coinbase has officially introduced Custom Stablecoins, allowing companies to issue their own branded stablecoins without building payment infrastructure from scratch. These tokens can be backed by flexible collateral, including USDC, while Coinbase handles issuance, compliance, and operational complexity.

The product is designed for businesses that want deeper control over payment flows, customer rewards, and treasury operations. Companies will be able to incorporate their brand into all transactions and enjoy the advantages of settling in a stablecoin rather than using third-party stablecoins.

Early integration with Flipcash, Solflare and R2 already have their launches under consideration, which indicates solid wallets, fintechs and onchain applications demand differentiation.

Strategically, Custom Stablecoins make Coinbase more than a trading site. The exchange is transformed into an exchange of cores payments and issuance layer, which derives value out of the activity of transactions, as opposed to trading volume alone.

Read More: Coinbase Set to Shake Up Crypto with Launch of Prediction Markets on December 17

Stablecoins Shift from Infrastructure to Product

Cross-border payments and onchain settlement have already been investigated and confirmed to be worthwhile with the help of Stablecoins. This step that Coinbase has taken is a step further since it is now transforming stablecoins into customizable financial products, specific to ecosystems and user bases.

This is in line with its overall developer strategy at Coinbase. The company is developing a full-stack stablecoin platform with its payment APIs and custody products, which can be used by everything, consumer apps, and enterprise-scale payment systems.

Coinbase Partners With Kalshi to Launch Prediction Markets

Regulated Event Trading Comes to Coinbase

In addition, Coinbase collaborates with Kalshi to introduce regulated prediction markets, in collaboration with Custom Stablecoins, to users in the United States. The integration enables users to trade on the results of real-life events like elections, economic indicators, sporting activities and cultural events.

When it is launched, all prediction market contracts and liquidity are obtained through Kalshi, a market operator based in the U.S. users with Coinbase can trade these contracts inside the core app with as little as $1 of USD or USDC.

Coinbase integrates prediction markets into its central interface, eliminating roughness that has historically been a limiting factor in its adoption. Users can have prediction positions, crypto, stocks and cash balances all in a single and accessible location.

Why Prediction Markets Fit Coinbase’s Strategy

Speculative upside is not the only benefit of prediction markets. It is possible since they are real-time signals of group opinion and tend to respond more promptly than more traditional media or opinion polls.

With Coinbase, an alliance with Kalshi would provide a new asset category which is not directly linked to crypto price fluctuations. This will aid in the diversification of interest and will ensure that users are engaged even when there is a decrease in crypto volatility.

Coinbase has suggested that Kalshi is the first partner, and more prediction market platforms would be supported in future. This implies a larger vision of being a focal distribution point of the event-based market.

Read More: California Crypto Users Miss Out on $110M as Coinbase Moves to Restore Staking After 2023 Ban

Coinbase’s Everything Exchange Vision

Connecting Stablecoins, Markets, and Onchain Activity

Prediction markets and Custom Stablecoins are a broader platform transition. Coinbase is creating a platform on which the payment, trading and onchain applications integrate with each other.

The settlement layer is composed of stablecoins. Prediction markets bring about real world outcome trading. The combination of the two reaffirms the position Coinbase takes as an always-on financial platform, and not a one-asset exchange.

This also suits Coinbase as it moves longer term into tokenization and onchain finance infrastructure. Event markets and stablecoins are some of the building block solutions to more assets and financial contracts onchain.

In the case of businesses, Custom Stablecoins provide an opportunity to manage payment experiences and use the Coinbase regulated infrastructure. The Kalshi partnership shows that developers can integrate real-life data and events with crypto-native financial products.