From Product Shelf to Decision Layer

The real battleground has shifted from product shelf to decision layer. Once the same apps all let customers buy stocks, crypto, options, futures, prediction contracts, and tokenized assets, the harder problem is turning a market view into a concrete portfolio and then managing it. That is why AI research, social discovery, and automated execution are moving from side features to the core interface, while the broker itself starts to look more like plumbing underneath.

• Robinhood is leaning into the trader stack. It has tied together prediction markets, stock tokens in Europe, Cortex, and agentic trading, which points to a high frequency consumer workflow where the app is not just where orders happen, but where ideas are generated, tested, and executed quickly.
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• Coinbase is building toward an everything exchange from the crypto side. Its stock perpetual futures and prediction markets reuse the same derivatives engine and risk system already used for crypto, which is a concrete example of convergence. New asset classes are being added onto one trading rail instead of through separate products.
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• Kraken still shows one of the clearest remaining wedges, serving professional traders with speed, liquidity, and exchange infrastructure first. But even Kraken is expanding outward through futures, payments, and platform services, which reinforces the point that distribution now comes less from unique assets and more from the user workflow built on top.
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The next split is likely to be between trading platforms and conviction platforms. Some brokers will optimize for constant action, fast signals, and agent driven execution. Others will optimize for buy and hold research, portfolio construction, and monitored automation. In both cases, the winner will be the interface that answers what to buy, not the venue that merely clears the trade.