Coinbase and Robinhood's futures brokers hold $581 million, more than all six US forex dealers' $470 million

In January the two brokers' pool crossed above the forex dealers' total. The futures brokers inside Coinbase·+0.75% — Coinbase, up 0.75 percent as of its last quote and Robinhood▲+1.29% — Robinhood, up 1.29 percent today began holding more segregated client money than all six registered US retail forex dealers combined, according to FM Intelligence, the research arm of Finance Magnates, which reads the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's monthly filings↗ ¹. By August the count was $581.4 million against $470 million ¹. Two years earlier the same two futures commission merchants, the licensed brokers that carry retail margin, held $40.3 million between them ¹.

A rule that pays the incumbents

On October 5 the CFTC published an advance notice covering Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets↗ ¹⁴. Retail crypto loans could run only through futures commission merchants or banks they sponsor, and the notice sets no leverage ratio ¹⁵. It asks whether margin belongs with clearing houses or the National Futures Association, the industry body that caps forex dealing at 50:1 ¹⁴.

Law firm Lowenstein Sandler reads that as a moat. Adoption, its alert says, "could also increase the value of existing DCM, FCM, and other registrations," the exchange and futures-broker licenses the rule would build on ⁴. Coinbase Financial Markets held $346.9 million in August and Robinhood Derivatives $234.5 million, while Kraken's NinjaTrader Clearing, a CFTC-registered futures broker bought for $1.5 billion, held $586.5 million ¹⁸. One Kraken subsidiary alone now sits on more client money than every US forex dealer combined ¹.

Coinbase and Robinhood have already built the channel

Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong declared the Deribit integration complete on October 11: US and international derivatives, one collateral pool ². Deribit is the crypto options exchange Coinbase bought for about $2.9 billion in August 2025 ³. Coinbase says CFTC guidance from May makes Coinbase Financial Markets the first US-regulated futures broker able to connect US clients to global derivatives liquidity, with balances migrated on October 1 and US retail options due later this year ⁹¹⁰³.

For Coinbase investors the stake runs through that stack, not the spot exchange: the rule's payoff lands in the derivatives business Armstrong just finished, and no source yet quantifies the revenue. Robinhood moved the same way. It launched perpetual futures, contracts with no expiry, on September 29↗ at up to 10 times leverage on bitcoin and ethereum through Robinhood Derivatives, its own CFTC-registered futures broker ⁷, against a 2:1 cap in Europe ¹.

The comparison is narrow and the rule may not survive

The comparison has limits: futures-broker balances cover every futures client, not only crypto, while the forex figure is retail only ¹. The rule also may never bind. Lawyer Renato Mariotti calls the CFTC's reading clever but warns that courts, less deferential since Loper Bright, the 2024 Supreme Court ruling that ended judicial deference to agencies, may refuse it ⁶. The route is voluntary, and Congress walked away when the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill, failed 49 to 50 on September 15 ⁶.

The losers are shrinking anyway. Forex dealers' balances sit 15 percent below their August 2015 level, and Gain Capital and OANDA, two of the six, hold 71 percent of what is left ¹. Outside the fence, two offshore white-label providers paid a $2.5 million fine in June for letting offshore brands sell leveraged trades to US clients ¹.

What December decides

Comments close December 14 ¹. Chairman Michael Selig says he wants rules that "prevent, rather than only prosecute after the fact,"↗ schemes like FTX ⁵. The next monthly filing will show whether three crypto-owned brokers keep pulling away from six forex dealers that have been shrinking for a decade ¹.