Gold and silver futures just broke free from market hours that haven't changed in decades. On June 13, Coinbase became the first regulated exchange in the United States to offer 24/7 precious metals futures — available every hour of every day, including weekends and public holidays, through Interactive Brokers and NinjaTrader.
For most of modern financial history, precious metals trading ran on an industrial-era schedule. CME closed at night and went dark on weekends. If the Fed made an emergency announcement on Saturday evening or a geopolitical flashpoint flared over a three-day weekend, traders had no option but to wait for Monday's open. Now they do.
"We're setting a lot of world firsts recently," Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on launch day. "Today's: gold and silver futures now trade 24/7 in the US on Coinbase."
The contracts are deliberately small. One troy ounce for gold and 50 troy ounces for silver — roughly 100 times smaller than a standard CME contract. That's a direct play for retail traders who want a metals hedge without committing tens of thousands of dollars to a single position. Coinbase Derivatives already cleared over $52 billion in commodity futures volume in Q1 2026, with metals identified as the fastest-growing segment.
The move is part of Coinbase's broader "Everything Exchange" push — the company's bet that a single platform should eventually cover crypto, equities, commodities, and anything else that trades. Non-U.S. users have had access to gold and silver perpetual contracts settled in USDC for months. The U.S. launch was the final piece.
Traditional exchanges haven't moved yet. But if retail traders take to weekend metals trading in volume, CME and ICE will face a harder question: why does a multi-trillion-dollar market still close on Saturday?
