Digital brokerage eToro is expanding its bet on decentralized finance, leading a $12.5 million funding round for Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange founded by former Revolut employees.
The round also attracted backing from Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc, as digital brokerages increasingly compete to bring blockchain-based trading to a wider audience.
The investment comes just months after eToro announced its $70 million acquisition of crypto self-custody wallet Zengo, offering a clearer look at how the company plans to grow its Web3 business.
“We are seeing growing demand from our users for seamless access to DeFi products,” Elad Lavi, eToro’s executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, told CoinDesk.
“Our recent acquisition of Zengo and our investment in Extended are key parts of our strategy to meet this demand and expand our Web3 ecosystem,” he said.
eToro to bring onchain perpetual futures to Zengo wallet
As part of the partnership, eToro plans to integrate Extended’s perpetual futures technology directly into the Zengo wallet, allowing users to trade onchain derivatives while keeping full control of their crypto assets.
The company also plans to gradually bring more decentralized finance products into the main eToro platform.
The announcement comes as competition among online brokerages shifts toward blockchain infrastructure and tokenized financial products.
Just this week, Robinhood unveiled its own blockchain network, expanded its tokenized stock offering and announced plans to take its perpetual futures business beyond cryptocurrencies into markets such as gold and oil.
Perpetual futures have become one of the fastest-growing products in crypto trading. While they were once largely limited to digital assets like bitcoin, exchanges are increasingly offering contracts tied to stocks, commodities and other tokenized real-world assets.
That trend is helping blur the lines between traditional financial markets and crypto-native platforms.
Extended has already built significant scale
Led by former Revolut crypto executive Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, the company says it has processed more than $245 billion in trading volume as of June and currently supports more than 100 perpetual futures markets.
The startup now plans to expand into spot trading, tokenized real-world assets and multi-asset collateral.
“The first phase was building for DeFi natives,” Fakhrutdinov said. “The next is expanding the infrastructure and partnerships needed to support the next stage of onchain derivatives.”
eToro’s investment reflects a broader race among financial platforms to become one-stop destinations for digital investing.
Coinbase has expanded its derivatives business, Robinhood is combining tokenized stocks with crypto products, and prediction market platform Kalshi has also entered the perpetual futures market.
As blockchain technology becomes more deeply integrated into financial markets, the distinction between brokerages, crypto exchanges and trading platforms continues to fade.
“Capital markets are increasingly converging with digital asset infrastructure,” said Ouriel Ohayon, managing director of Zengo. “eToro’s investment in Extended reflects a shared belief that the future of trading will be digital, always accessible and operate around the clock.”
With its latest investment, eToro is positioning itself to capture a larger share of that rapidly evolving market as demand for onchain financial services continues to grow.
