Deribit already holds 96.6% of Coinbase's derivatives open interest ahead of Sept. 9 migration

Nearly all the open interest displayed on Coinbase’s derivatives dashboard already sits at Deribit, its global derivatives venue, eight days before institutional positions at the much smaller Coinbase International Exchange are scheduled to move there.

A Coinbase derivatives dashboard snapshot retrieved at 15:42 UTC on Sept. 1 showed $40.65 billion of daily open interest across three venues. Deribit accounted for $39.26 billion, about 96.6%, while Coinbase Derivatives held $1.17 billion and International Exchange held $226.98 million.

The Sept. 9 transfer covers the $226.98 million International Exchange book, client accounts, and trading infrastructure. The $39.26 billion already at Deribit stays where it is, on the venue that represents almost all the open interest displayed on Coinbase’s dashboard.

Open interest measures outstanding derivatives positions, a different metric from customer assets, exchange revenue, unique capital and solvency.

The dashboard’s headline total was $40.55 billion at the same retrieval, $100 million below the venue-level panel. The venue panel is the relevant basis for comparing where the displayed open interest sat, and all of the figures remain a live snapshot.

What changes on Sept. 9

Coinbase says institutional International Exchange accounts, open positions, and balances remain scheduled to migrate to Deribit on Sept. 9. The company cautions in its migration materials that the date depends on client readiness and regulatory approvals and remains subject to change.

The cutover is operationally significant even though International Exchange contributes less than 1% of the displayed open interest, and Coinbase expects about 30 minutes of downtime.

Its institutional FAQ says all open International Exchange orders will be canceled, positions settled at the mark price with profit and loss crystallized and funding paid, resulting balances transferred, and positions recreated on Deribit at the same settlement price through matched migration trades.

Coinbase’s International Exchange trading rules treat the contracts as continuous and enforceable under Deribit FZE’s rules. The FAQ describes how those positions will settle and be rebooked during the migration window.

Independent venue settlement before the cutover can produce an immediate unrealized profit or loss when Deribit markets reopen, even as the migration preserves a client’s economic exposure. Coinbase classifies the tagged migration trades as administrative records.

For institutional traders, the deeper change is the replacement of International Exchange’s operating conventions with Deribit’s.

Perpetual contracts settle every five minutes on International Exchange. On Deribit, settlement occurs once a day at 08:00 UTC, when session profit and loss is credited or deducted while positions remain open.

International Exchange applies funding hourly without a rate clamp, while Deribit accrues funding continuously, reflects it in realized session PnL, quotes an eight-hour rate, and applies a damper that reduces funding to zero when the mark price is within 0.025% of the index.

Coinbase says Deribit caps the eight-hour rate at 0.5% for BTC, 1% for ETH, and 5% for USDC- and USDT-related contracts in either direction.

International Exchange API endpoints will cease supporting trading after Sept. 9, and clients need new Deribit credentials for REST, WebSocket, FIX, or SBE connections. International Exchange APIs are expected to preserve historical order and trade data for about 12 months.

One venue, several legal routes

The migration concentrates execution while counterparty and custody arrangements vary by institution.

For institutions that only have an International Exchange account, Coinbase Bermuda Limited will act as broker and custodian, routing orders to Deribit for execution. Institutions that already trade on both International Exchange and Deribit will use Coinbase Bermuda as custodian but trade directly with Deribit FZE as counterparty.

Some clients continuing with third-party custody will move their trading relationship to Deribit Panama, which Coinbase identifies in its entity disclosures as DRB Panama, Inc.

Execution can converge at Deribit while brokerage, custody and counterparty exposure remain divided by client type and jurisdiction. On May 29, Commodity Futures Trading Commission staff said the digital-commodity perpetuals described by Coinbase Financial Markets could be categorized as foreign futures.

Staff also issued a conditional no-action position allowing the registered futures commission merchant to post eligible customer-owned digital commodities and payment stablecoins through Coinbase Bermuda to Deribit for foreign-futures and foreign-options margin under a right of re-use.

The CFTC staff letter creates a fact-dependent intermediation route for Coinbase Financial Markets customers: the US-registered firm is the futures commission merchant, Coinbase Bermuda acts as the foreign broker, and Deribit FZE is the foreign venue. Deribit remains a foreign venue, and its open interest stays separate from Coinbase Derivatives.

The no-action position carries nine conditions. Among them, the entities must remain wholly owned by Coinbase Global, Coinbase Financial Markets must arrange and file a Part 30 acknowledgment-style agreement, relevant customers must be able to access Deribit’s audited financial statements and SOC 2 report, and a criminal-disqualification bar applies to Deribit, Coinbase Bermuda, and their affiliates.

The firms must also maintain consolidated risk and information-security controls. The right of re-use must be allowed under applicable foreign rules and used only to margin or secure customer foreign-futures and options obligations.

Enhanced customer disclosures, collateral haircuts and segregation requirements also apply. The letter’s scope is a staff position tied to the represented facts and specified products, and staff can change or withdraw it.

Coinbase’s dashboard presents a combined derivatives footprint, but 96.6% of the venue-level open interest in the Sept. 1 snapshot sat on Deribit, while Coinbase Derivatives remained a much smaller, separately regulated US venue.

The Deribit concentration predates the Sept. 9 consolidation of International Exchange users, interfaces, positions, and market infrastructure.

For traders, the immediate consequences are a short period without control of positions, new APIs and records, different settlement and funding mechanics, and a client-specific counterparty map.

For US market structure, access to the dominant venue in Coinbase’s displayed footprint can be intermediated under CFTC conditions, while the offshore liquidity pool and the onshore regulated venue remain distinct.

The 96.6% figure measures the venue location of Coinbase’s displayed derivatives positions. Asset custody and the scope of the Sept. 9 transfer are separate questions.

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