Coinbase Launches Commission-Free US Stock Trading for UK Users

A crypto exchange just became one of the more unusual ways for UK retail investors to buy Apple or Tesla shares.

Coinbase launched commission-free US stock trading for UK users on August 6, operating under a new FCA MiFID-equivalent license granted to CB Payments Ltd. The offering covers nearly 4,000 US equities with fractional shares starting from just $1, funded directly in British pounds or USDC, with underlying stock positions held by Apex Clearing and covered by SIPC protection up to $500,000.

The launch positions Coinbase as arguably the first crypto-native platform to offer regulated, at-scale access to US equities for UK retail users, blurring the line between traditional brokerage apps and crypto exchanges in a market where that distinction has historically been sharp.

Letting users fund stock purchases directly with USDC is the more structurally interesting piece of the launch, since it treats a stablecoin as a genuine funding rail for traditional securities trading rather than keeping crypto and equities in separate walled-off product experiences, the kind of integration several traditional brokerages have been slower to build.

Zero-commission US equity access has become a competitive baseline among UK trading apps in recent years, meaning Coinbases differentiation here likely rests more on the crypto-native funding options and its existing user base than on pricing alone, at least until competitors respond with similar stablecoin-funding features of their own.

Want to understand how stablecoins like USDC actually function as a funding and settlement layer? Learn more in the Bitcoin Academy.