Coinbase Wants to Be Canada’s ‘Everything Exchange’ — but Says the Rules Aren’t Ready

One app for crypto, tokenized stocks, and prediction markets — that’s the pitch Coinbase’s Canadian arm is making to regulators, even as it admits the rulebook it needs isn’t fully written yet.

Building the “Everything Exchange”

Coinbase Canada, led by country director and CEO Eric Richmond, has been expanding what the company calls its “everything exchange” concept north of the border: a single platform where Canadian users can trade cryptocurrency, buy tokenized versions of traditional stocks, and participate in prediction markets, all in one place. The company has already begun rolling out tokenized equities for users outside the U.S., Canada included.

Coinbase has an established relationship with Canadian regulators to build on, having become the first international crypto exchange registered in the country back in April 2024. That head start matters, since regulatory trust built over years is difficult for a newer entrant to replicate quickly.

The Rules Aren’t Finished Yet

Despite that relationship, Richmond has been candid that Canada’s regulatory guidance remains more fragmented and slower-moving than in the U.S., delaying products like higher-yield lending and broader futures access for Canadian retail users. The biggest remaining gap is stablecoins specifically: the Bank of Canada isn’t expected to finalize stablecoin rules until 2027, which is also the last major piece needed before a Canadian-dollar stablecoin could operate on the platform.

Richmond has argued publicly that Canada needs to move past handling crypto through case-by-case exemptions and toward a single, harmonized national framework if it wants to support more sophisticated products like the ones Coinbase is pushing for.

Why This Is Worth Watching

Coinbase’s strategy here mirrors a broader industry pattern: build the product ambition first, then use that momentum to push regulators toward clearer rules, rather than waiting for full regulatory certainty before expanding. Whether that approach pays off in Canada the way it arguably has in parts of the U.S. market will depend heavily on how quickly Ottawa moves on the stablecoin framework specifically.

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