Coinbase Launches 24/7 Stock Trading with 10x Leverage
March 22, 20268 min readDeep Dive
Fazen Markets Research
AI-Enhanced Analysis
Coinbase24/7 tradingleverageequitiesmarket structure
Coinbase announced a 24/7 stock trading product with up to 10x leverage for selected US mega-cap stocks on Mar 22, 2026 (Yahoo Finance). The initial list of tickers reported by the platform includes Tesla (TSLA), Apple (AAPL) and Nvidia (NVDA), representing some of the most liquid names in US equity markets. The offering collapses the historical distinction between continuous crypto trading and traditional equities schedules, introducing round-the-clock liquidity and margin dynamics into securities normally governed by 9:30–16:00 ET primary sessions and extended sessions through 20:00 ET. The 10x leverage cap contrasts sharply with Regulation T's typical 50% initial margin (effectively 2x leverage), creating a markedly higher sensitivity to intraday price movements. Market participants, infrastructure providers and regulators will need to reconcile continuous trading with T+2 settlement, best execution obligations and the mechanics of margin close-outs.
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US equity markets have operated within a well-defined temporal framework for decades: regular trading from 9:30–16:00 ET, with pre-market and after-hours electronic sessions extending activity before and after the primary session (pre-market commonly beginning around 4:00 ET and after-hours extending to 20:00 ET). That structure underpins centralized price discovery, clearing and settlement practices, and the handling of institutional order flow, block trades and ETF creation/redemption. Crypto markets, by contrast, have long been continuous and 24/7, with liquidity provided by automated market makers and global participants operating across time zones. Coinbase's announcement explicitly imports that continuous model into listed equity execution, setting up a direct comparison between two market archetypes and forcing reconciliation of trading mechanics, risk controls and disclosure frameworks.
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The specifics reported on Mar 22, 2026 are concrete: continuous, 24/7 execution availability on certain US-listed equities and margining up to 10x notional exposure for retail customers (Yahoo Finance, Mar 22, 2026). Coinbase indicated the initial coverage would include TSLA, AAPL and NVDA, names chosen for their deep capitalizations and high average daily volumes; the choice reduces some execution risk but does not eliminate the regulatory and risk-management complications inherent to leveraged, continuous access. For institutional participants that benchmark versus consolidated tape prices during regular hours, an always-on venue creates potential arbitrage opportunities as prices discovered overnight feed back into the primary session. For retail users, the combination of continuous hours and 10x leverage materially raises the probability of rapid liquidations: a 10% adverse move can entirely wipe equity in a 10x position, versus a 50% adverse move needed for a fully margined 2x Reg T position.
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The regulatory overlay is complex. Securities traded on US exchanges remain subject to SEC rules on fair access, best execution, and reporting, and broker-dealers operating alternative execution venues must comply with the broker-dealer, clearing and market surveillance framework overseen by the SEC and FINRA. Settlement mechanics also matter: US equities settle on a T+2 basis (rule change implemented in September 2017), so trade execution that is continuous does not change the cash/settlement calendar. That creates potential credit and operational friction when trades executed on weekends or holiday hours need to be netted into a T+2 clearing cycle. Regulators will likely scrutinize disclosures and guardrails tied to margin, surveillance for manipulative activity in lower-liquidity windows, and the adequacy of clearing relationships underpinning continuous execution.
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Key quantitative markers from the announcement and market structure context: 24/7 trading availability (operational hours: continuous), a 10x leverage cap on margin positions reported by Coinbase (Yahoo Finance, Mar 22, 2026), traditional US regular session hours of 9:30–16:00 ET with extended sessions frequently quoted to 20:00 ET, and Regulation T's 50% initial margin requirement (Federal Reserve Board), which implies a 2x buying power baseline for regulated margin activity. These are not ancillary details — they are the principal metrics that determine risk: leverage ratio, coverage universe, and hours of execution. Each number has immediate arithmetic consequences for liquidation thresholds, margin maintenance requirements and capital utilization.
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To translate leverage into exposure: at 10x leverage, a $1,000 equity stake can support $10,000 in notional exposure. By comparison, under Reg T a $1,000 cash deposit would typically support roughly $2,000 notional. Practically, a 10% adverse move on the notional side eliminates the margin cushion entirely at 10x, while a 50% adverse move is required at 2x. Coinbase's move therefore increases price sensitivity by a factor of five relative to Reg T initial margin conventions. That arithmetic will matter in thin windows when liquidity providers withdraw or when algorithmic market makers widen spreads; the larger the leverage, the more acute the cascade potential of forced liquidations.
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Volume distribution by hour is relevant but uneven across names. Historically, the bulk of daily volume concentrates in regular session hours; extended-hours trading typically represents a minority share of total daily volume, often in the low single-digit to low-double-digit percent range depending on the stock and macro-news flow (SEC market-structure analyses). Selecting highly liquid mega-cap names mitigates the immediate liquidity cliff, yet liquidity depth at 03:00 ET is not the same as at 15:30 ET. The interaction between continuous trading and consolidated tape reporting, trade-at rules and the routing obligations of broker-dealers will shape how meaningful overnight prints are for price discovery and benchmarking.
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For brokerage and execution venues the competitive calculus changes. Erosion of temporal exclusivity in price discovery may pressure incumbents to offer more flexible hours or to expand their own product suites to capture off-hours retail order flow. High-frequency and market-making firms that already operate global, continuous venues (FX, crypto) could extend their strategies into US equities on a 24/7 basis, potentially capturing spread revenue in time windows where local institutional participation is low. This will likely advantage firms with robust global footprint, low-latency infrastructure and cross-margining capabilities that can net exposures across asset classes.
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ETF issuers and options market makers will face new hedging challenges. Options trading remains concentrated in regular equity hours for settlement and clearing reasons, and delta hedges executed overnight in a 24/7 stock market could create basis risk for options positions priced with a view on regular-session liquidity. Market makers may widen quoted option implied volatilities to compensate for increased hedging costs, especially for expiry windows that span eventful news cycles. For institutional algo desks, continuous equity ticks will change intraday rebalancing patterns and could increase the need for round-the-clock risk monitoring.
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From a macro market-structure standpoint, fragmentation risk rises. A new significant continuous venue that attracts retail and off-exchange volume can shift price discovery away from lit exchanges during particular hours. That potential fragmentation creates both opportunities for arbitrage and challenges for consolidated tape integrity, transaction reporting and surveillance. Regulators and industry utilities will need to evaluate whether existing consolidation mechanisms and market data distribution adequately reflect round-the-clock prints and whether tape latency or reporting windows require adjustment.
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Leverage is the first-order risk. 10x leverage means a 10% adverse move in the stock price will typically result in full loss of the margin buffer — a mathematically precise and operationally simple but economically severe dynamic. For retail clients without institutional backstops, that increases the frequency of margin liquidations relative to 2x Reg T norms, potentially generating amplified intraday volatility. Platforms must therefore implement rapid, transparent margin calls and sensible liquidation ladders to avoid disorderly execution and spillover into regular-session order books.
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Settlement and counterparty risk are next. The T+2 settlement cycle means a trade executed on a Sunday night still settles two business days after the trade date; a continuous execution model therefore introduces periods where netted open positions aggregate ahead of clearing deadlines without the traditional institutional settlement cadence. Clearing counterparties and custodians need to ensure capital and operational controls accommodate the different cadence of trade ingestion. Margin posting schedules, collateral eligibility rules and intraday margin calculations assume certain operating hours; changing that assumption requires substantive operational adaptation at both custodians and clearinghouses.
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Market manipulation and surveillance risk increase when liquidity thins. Lower participation overnight can magnify the impact of directional trades and spoofing-like behavior. Surveillance systems built around regular-session patterns must be recalibrated for continuous flow and anomalous patterns that span conventional off-hours. Regulators will scrutinize whether Coinbase and similar venues maintain surveillance parity with exchanges and whether trade reporting, audit trails and participant identity transparency suffice to deter abuse.
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Contrarian insight: 24/7 stock trading with elevated leverage will likely create time-segmented alpha opportunities for sophisticated liquidity providers rather than democratize superior execution for retail clients. The structural advantage remains with firms that can quote consistently across time zones, hold inventory efficiently, and hedge across correlated instruments. In practice, that means global market-makers and institutional desks with cross-asset capabilities will capture a disproportionate share of the incremental spread capture overnight, while retail customers face outsized liquidation risk in thin markets.
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Another non-obvious outcome could be re-pricing of options and volatility risk premia where options markets incorporate a new distribution of intraday jumps. If continuous equity trading reduces the clustering of news-driven gaps at market open but increases overnight micro-variance, implied volatilities may adjust in ways not captured by current intraday hedging models. That dynamic could favor bespoke volatility strategies and higher compensation for liquidity provision, particularly for options dealers forced to hedge in intrinsically asynchronous venues.
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Institutional investors should anticipate operational and execution-model changes; for those building strategy or custody roadmaps, the priority should be robust round-the-clock risk monitoring and contingency planning for cross-session settlement mismatches. For further reading on market structure and continuous-book implications, see our research hub on equities strategy and our notes on cross-venue arbitrage in crypto and traditional markets.
Q: How does 10x leverage compare to standard regulated margin for retail accounts?
A: Regulation T typically requires a 50% initial margin, implying roughly 2x buying power for a cash deposit. A 10x product increases leverage by fivefold relative to that Reg T baseline, meaning price movements that would have been manageable at Reg T levels can produce rapid liquidations at 10x. Platforms may apply additional maintenance margins and intraday risk controls, but the underlying math remains unchanged: higher leverage compresses tolerable price moves.
Q: Will trades executed on weekends settle immediately?
A: Trades executed outside standard business days still follow the T+2 settlement convention used by US equities, which was implemented in September 2017. Settlement timing does not change because execution hours expand; counterparties and clearinghouses must accept flow into the existing settlement process, meaning weekend trades may simply be queued into the next business-day processing window.
Q: What operational steps should institutional desks take now?
A: Practical steps include reassessing liquidity schedules for key tickers across 24-hour windows, expanding monitoring to off-hours risk indicators, stress-testing margin and liquidation ladders for extreme overnight moves, and validating counterparties' clearing/custody arrangements for continuous flow. Firms should also revisit best-execution policies to account for the potential significance of off-exchange, out-of-session prints.
Coinbase's March 22, 2026 launch of 24/7 trading with up to 10x leverage on mega-cap names materially alters the execution landscape and raises acute margin, settlement and surveillance questions. Market structure participants and regulators must rapidly adapt controls, reporting and liquidity provisioning to manage the systemic and retail risks this product introduces.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
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