TLDR
- eToro spearheaded a $12.5 million investment round in Extended, a blockchain-based perpetual futures platform
- This investment connects with eToro’s previous $70 million purchase of Zengo, a self-custody crypto wallet
- Extended’s founding team includes ex-Revolut staff and the platform has facilitated over $245 billion in trades
- eToro will embed Extended’s derivatives trading engine within the Zengo wallet infrastructure
- Competitors including Robinhood and Coinbase are simultaneously expanding their on-chain and perpetual futures capabilities
eToro has taken the lead in a $12.5 million investment round for Extended, an emerging platform dedicated to on-chain perpetual futures trading. The funding round also attracted participation from Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc.
Extended’s origins trace back to Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, who previously served as Revolut‘s crypto division leader, alongside several other former Revolut team members. The platform made its debut in late 2024, utilizing StarkWare’s StarkEx scaling technology as its foundation.
By June, Extended had facilitated more than $245 billion in cumulative trading activity and offers access to over 100 different perpetual contract markets.
Connecting the Dots in eToro’s DeFi Blueprint
This strategic investment builds upon eToro’s $70 million acquisition of Zengo, a self-custody cryptocurrency wallet announced earlier in April. Zengo employs multi-party computation technology, eliminating the requirement for conventional seed phrase recovery methods.
eToro’s roadmap involves integrating Extended’s perpetual futures trading infrastructure directly within the Zengo wallet ecosystem. This integration will enable users to execute on-chain derivative transactions while maintaining full custody of their digital assets.
Elad Lavi, who serves as eToro’s executive vice president overseeing corporate development and strategy, noted increasing user appetite for decentralized finance capabilities. He characterized both the Zengo purchase and Extended investment as fundamental components of the company’s broader strategic vision.
Looking ahead, eToro aims to incorporate DeFi offerings into its primary brokerage ecosystem.
During Q1 2026, eToro generated $13 million in cryptocurrency-related profits, representing approximately 5% of its overall net trading income of $258 million. This marked a decline from the $46 million recorded during the equivalent period in 2025.
Financial Platforms Rush to Embrace Blockchain Infrastructure
eToro’s initiative isn’t happening in isolation. Coinciding with this announcement, competing brokerage Robinhood unveiled its proprietary blockchain network, broadened its tokenized equity products, and revealed intentions to introduce perpetual futures contracts for commodities including gold and crude oil.
Coinbase has similarly ventured into perpetual futures markets. Prediction marketplace platform Kalshi has also recently joined this competitive landscape.
Perpetual futures contracts, once considered a specialized cryptocurrency instrument, are now being applied by trading venues to equities, commodities, and various real-world assets.
Extended has outlined future plans encompassing spot trading expansion, tokenized real-world asset integration, and support for multi-asset collateral systems.
Ouriel Ohayon, serving as managing director at Zengo, observed that capital markets are progressively merging with digital asset infrastructure, emphasizing that tomorrow’s trading environment will function around the clock.
The strategic initiatives from eToro, Robinhood, and Coinbase signal a comprehensive industry shift toward creating unified platforms capable of processing both conventional and cryptocurrency financial instruments under one roof.
