Eric Richmond, CEO of Coinbase Canada, told BNN Bloomberg this week that the company's crypto-only phase in the country is finished. What he is building toward is something closer to a full brokerage, a prediction market, and a crypto exchange folded into a single app, all settled on blockchain rails. He called it the 'Everything Exchange,' and the framing was deliberate: 'How do we create that one place for Canadians to have their entire financial experience in one app?'
The practical answer starts arriving now. Tokenized stocks, which are equity positions in real companies recorded on a blockchain rather than in a legacy brokerage system, are rolling out to non-U.S. users including Canadians this month, according to a previous Coinbase blog post. These instruments carry full dividend rights and settle instantly, meaning a Canadian retail investor could buy a share at midnight on a Sunday and own it by 12:01. That is not how any traditional brokerage on the TSX operates. The shift is structural, not cosmetic, and it mirrors the direction tokenized securities are moving in other G7 markets, where infrastructure is ahead of the cash rails needed to make it work at scale.
What the Platform Actually Looks Like
The full vision stacks several asset classes that currently require separate apps, separate KYC processes, and separate regulatory registrations. Crypto trades alongside S&P 500 ETFs. Prediction markets sit in the same interface. Settlement runs on blockchain, which means it runs at any hour rather than closing at 4 p.m. like conventional platforms.
Coinbase has the regulatory footing to attempt this. It became the first international crypto exchange registered in Canada in April 2024, giving it a compliance baseline that newer entrants lack. But the timeline for the full Everything Exchange has no hard launch date yet. One significant gap: a Canadian dollar stablecoin, which would serve as the native cash layer for the platform, is blocked until the Bank of Canada finalizes stablecoin regulations. That is not expected until 2027. So the architecture is going up before the plumbing is in place.
How the Market Is Reading the Move
The announcement lands at a moment when crypto exchanges globally are under pressure to justify valuations built on trading fee revenue that compresses every cycle. Coinbase's answer is to expand the addressable market rather than fight for share of an existing one. Folding stocks and ETFs into a crypto-native app is a direct shot at Wealthsimple and Questrade in Canada, both of which have built their own combined investing platforms but without blockchain settlement.
For Canadian retail investors, the near-term impact is concrete: 24/7 equity trading with instant settlement, starting this month. The longer-term question, whether a single Coinbase account can genuinely replace a bank account, a brokerage, and a crypto wallet, hinges on that 2027 stablecoin regulatory deadline. Until then, fiat still has to move through traditional rails, which is the friction the Everything Exchange is ultimately designed to eliminate.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
