Coinbase will transfer institutional clients’ International Exchange accounts, balances and open positions to Deribit on Sept. 9, with trading expected to pause for about 30 minutes during the cutover.
Summary
- Coinbase will migrate institutional International Exchange accounts, balances and positions to Deribit on September 9.
- Clients declining the transfer must close positions and accounts before Coinbase’s August 28 opt-out deadline.
- Migration will cancel open orders, crystallize profit and loss, then recreate positions at identical prices.
- Existing API keys and margin loans will not transfer, requiring technical and financing changes beforehand.
- Deribit will become Coinbase’s unified global derivatives venue, combining previously separated institutional liquidity pools worldwide.
The company set Aug. 28 as the deadline for clients who do not want to participate. Those institutions must close their positions and International Exchange accounts before that date. Accounts left open will be treated as having accepted the updated terms and migration.
The transfer moves Coinbase closer to consolidating its international derivatives operations under Deribit. Coinbase completed its acquisition of the crypto options exchange in August 2025 after agreeing to pay approximately $2.9 billion. At closing, Coinbase described Deribit as the largest crypto options venue by volume and open interest.
Coinbase Deribit migration will settle and rebuild positions
Coinbase expects to provision clients’ Deribit subaccounts in a read-only state on Aug. 31. Institutions should use that period to confirm account mappings, test access, create API credentials and request any necessary withdrawal or position limits.
On Sept. 9, Coinbase will cancel every open International Exchange order. It will settle existing positions at the venue’s mark price, crystallize profit and loss, pay accrued funding and transfer the resulting balances into Deribit subaccounts.
Coinbase will then recreate the positions at the same settlement price through matched migration trades. Those entries will appear as block trades tagged “Migration” in Deribit’s records. Coinbase says they will be administrative entries rather than new trades initiated by clients.
However, International Exchange and Deribit will price and settle their markets independently before the cutover. A difference between their market prices could produce immediate unrealized gains or losses when Deribit reopens. Coinbase says this would reflect the price gap during downtime rather than a migration charge or realized loss. No trading or settlement fees will apply to the transfer itself.
Institutions must replace APIs and close margin loans
Existing Coinbase International Exchange API keys will not work on Deribit. Clients must create new Deribit credentials and change their endpoints before trading resumes.
Coinbase’s current INTX perpetual trading endpoints will retire on Sept. 9. The replacement gateway will use JSON-RPC 2.0 through HTTP and WebSocket connections. Coinbase says it will support additional functions, including trailing stops, market-limit orders and WebSocket order entry. Claims of “deeper liquidity” and lower latency describe the company’s expected product benefits rather than independently measured outcomes.
International Exchange trading and order records will not appear inside Deribit. Coinbase expects to keep its legacy APIs accessible for historical information for approximately 12 months. It has advised institutions to save their records before migration when they need them for audits, taxes or regulatory reporting.
Margin loans will also remain behind. Institutions must close all existing loans before the cutover. Accounts will initially enter Deribit’s Cross Standard Margin system, although clients can select other margin models based on their portfolio and contractual arrangements.
Deribit will use clients’ International Exchange volumes to establish their opening fee tiers. Later tiers will depend on rolling 30-day Deribit trading volume. The migration itself is free, but regular trading fees will follow Deribit’s schedule afterward.
Legal arrangements will vary by account setup
The migration will not create one identical legal structure for every institution. Clients using only Coinbase International Exchange will generally retain Coinbase Bermuda Limited as their broker and custodian, with orders routed to Deribit for execution.
Institutions already trading directly on both venues may keep Coinbase Bermuda as custodian while using Deribit FZE as their trading counterparty. Some clients using outside custodians will move their trading relationship to Deribit Panama. Coinbase said account managers will send instructions where additional action is required.
The providing entity will depend on the institution’s jurisdiction and account type. Relevant entities include Coinbase Bermuda Limited, Dubai-regulated Deribit FZE, DRB Panama and Coinbase Financial Markets, a U.S. futures commission merchant and National Futures Association member.
Coinbase also cautioned that every announced date remains an estimate. The company could change the Aug. 31 provisioning date or Sept. 9 migration date and provide notice where required. Product access will also vary by country and client eligibility.
The switch advances Coinbase’s derivatives strategy
The consolidation follows Coinbase’s effort to turn Deribit into the main venue for its global derivatives business. When the acquisition closed, Deribit had approximately $60 billion in open interest and had processed more than $185 billion in July 2025 trading volume, according to company figures.
Coinbase reported $1.03 trillion in crypto derivatives trading volume during the second quarter of 2026, almost unchanged from the preceding quarter. The company said its derivatives market share reached a record level and increased for a third consecutive quarter. It identified unified U.S. and international liquidity through Deribit as one of its next operational steps.
As crypto.news previously reported, the acquisition gave Coinbase an immediate position in the institutional options market rather than requiring it to build an equivalent venue internally.
The international migration also sits beside Coinbase’s regulated U.S. derivatives expansion. In May, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed that specified Deribit perpetual contracts could receive treatment as foreign futures under certain conditions. Staff also provided conditional relief involving customer crypto collateral transferred through Coinbase Financial Markets.
In related coverage, crypto.news reported that Coinbase opened Deribit options access to eligible U.S. institutions through its regulated futures commission merchant. That route is separate from the Sept. 9 migration of International Exchange accounts, although both initiatives use Deribit as the underlying derivatives venue.
The next firm deadline is Aug. 28 for institutions opting out. Participating clients must then test their Deribit access from Aug. 31, close margin loans and replace API connections before the planned Sept. 9 cutover.
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