Deribit moves 90% of client assets to Coinbase, ends PoR

Deribit said roughly 90% of client assets have been moved into Coinbase custody as part of an integration following Coinbase’s August 2025 acquisition of the derivatives platform. The exchange will remove its daily public Proof of Reserves page on Sept. 1, ending the client-level Merkle balance checks that allowed users to verify inclusion and compare aggregate liabilities with published wallet holdings.

Deribit’s public snapshot previously used a privacy-preserving binary Merkle tree with daily snapshots. Each client could use a unique proof identifier to locate the hashed entries representing their balances. Anyone could sum the file’s liabilities and compare the total with the wallet balances Deribit published. The publicly posted snapshot excluded assets held with certain third-party custodians named in Deribit’s methodology. The company has not clarified whether assets now held by Coinbase were included in those public files.

After Sept. 1, Deribit has not committed to a replacement public dashboard or continued client-level Merkle verification. Clients and counterparties may request audited financial statements and other due-diligence material, which are produced less frequently and do not provide a daily, directly verifiable proof of inclusion. Deribit’s disclosures reference Coinbase at the brand level but do not identify the specific Coinbase legal entity holding the migrated assets.

Regulatory obligations under Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority continue to apply to Deribit FZE. VARA requires covered virtual asset service providers to maintain reserves equal to 100% of client liabilities, hold reserves one-to-one in the same asset, reconcile daily and obtain an independent third-party reserve audit at least every six months. VARA also requires an annual financial-statement audit, monthly submission of wallet addresses and quarterly statements demonstrating compliance with financial requirements; annual reports must be available to clients and the regulator on request.

VARA’s public register lists Deribit FZE as an active exchange and broker-dealer VASP. A separate VARA service-provider list names Coinbase for custody and self-custody technology without specifying the legal entity. The removal of the public Proof of Reserves page reduces the daily public visibility that allowed users to independently verify inclusion and compare aggregated liabilities with wallet balances; regulators will continue to receive required reports and audits while clients can obtain audit materials on request.