eToro Bets on DeFi With $12.5 Million Investment in Onchain Derivatives Platform Extended

TLDR

• eToro led a $12.5 million funding round in Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange
• The deal ties into eToro’s earlier $70 million acquisition of self-custody wallet Zengo
• Extended was founded by former Revolut employees and has processed over $245 billion in trading volume
• eToro plans to integrate Extended’s perpetual futures engine directly into the Zengo wallet
• Rivals like Robinhood and Coinbase are also pushing into onchain and perpetual futures trading

eToro has led a $12.5 million funding round in Extended, a startup building an onchain exchange for perpetual futures contracts. Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc also joined the round.

Extended was founded by Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, the former head of crypto at Revolut, along with other ex-Revolut employees. The platform launched in late 2024 and is built on StarkWare’s scaling engine, StarkEx.

As of June, Extended had processed more than $245 billion in trading volume and supports over 100 perpetual markets.

How This Fits eToro’s DeFi Strategy

The investment follows eToro’s $70 million acquisition of Zengo, a self-custody crypto wallet, announced in April. Zengo was built around multi-party computation technology, removing the need for traditional seed phrases.

eToro plans to plug Extended’s perpetual futures engine directly into the Zengo wallet. This would let users trade onchain derivatives while keeping control of their own assets.

Elad Lavi, eToro’s executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, said the company is seeing growing demand from users for DeFi access. He described both the Zengo acquisition and the Extended investment as core parts of that plan.

Over time, eToro also intends to bring DeFi products into its main brokerage platform.

In Q1 2026, eToro reported $13 million in crypto profit, around 5% of its total net trading profit of $258 million. That was down from $46 million in the same period in 2025.

Brokers Race to Build Onchain

eToro is not moving alone. On the same day the deal was announced, rival broker Robinhood launched its own blockchain, expanded its tokenized stock offering, and said it plans to offer perpetual futures tied to commodities like gold and oil.

Coinbase has also expanded into perpetual futures. Prediction market operator Kalshi recently entered the space as well.

Perpetual futures were once a niche crypto product. Now trading platforms are listing contracts tied to equities, commodities, and other real-world assets.

Extended says its next phase includes expanding into spot trading, tokenized real-world assets, and multi-asset collateral.

Ouriel Ohayon, managing director of Zengo, said capital markets are increasingly converging with digital asset infrastructure and that the future of trading will operate 24/7.

The moves by eToro, Robinhood, and Coinbase point to a broader push to build platforms that handle both traditional and crypto financial products in one place.

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