Trading platform eToro has led a $12.5 million funding round for Extended, an onchain exchange focused on perpetual futures, in a move that signals a deeper push by the brokerage into blockchain-based trading infrastructure and decentralized derivatives.
Jump Crypto also participated in the round, according to a statement released Thursday. The funding forms part of a broader partnership linking Extended with Zengo, the self-custody wallet business that eToro acquired earlier this year in a deal that reportedly valued Zengo at about $70 million.
The transaction is important because it brings together three pieces of infrastructure that are becoming increasingly central to crypto markets: self-custody wallets, onchain derivatives, and high-speed blockchain scaling technology. For eToro, the deal suggests that the company is not only looking to offer crypto exposure through its existing brokerage model, but also trying to build a more direct bridge into decentralized finance.
Under the partnership, Extended’s perpetual futures trading technology is expected to be connected with Zengo’s wallet infrastructure. That would allow traders to access onchain derivatives while retaining control of their assets through a self-custody setup, rather than relying entirely on a centralized exchange account.
The move comes as perpetual futures remain one of the most active areas of digital asset trading. These contracts, which allow traders to speculate on price moves without an expiry date, have become a core product across both centralized and decentralized crypto venues. Their growth has made them a strategic priority for trading platforms seeking to keep active users engaged and expand revenue opportunities beyond spot trading.
For eToro, the timing is notable. The company reported in May that profit from its crypto operations reached $13 million in the first quarter of 2026, representing roughly 5% of total net trading profit of $258 million. That was down from $46 million in crypto-related profit in the same period of 2025, reflecting a softer contribution from digital assets even as the broader market for crypto derivatives continued to expand.
The Extended deal therefore appears to be both a defensive and offensive step. It gives eToro a route into one of crypto’s fastest-growing trading segments, while also helping the brokerage position itself for a market where traders increasingly expect wallet-based access, faster settlement, and more control over funds.
Why the deal matters
The funding round is more than a simple capital raise for a young derivatives exchange. It is part of a broader shift in the structure of crypto trading, where the boundaries between traditional brokerages, centralized exchanges, self-custody wallets, and decentralized protocols are becoming less clear.
eToro has long operated as a social trading and brokerage platform, offering access to stocks, exchange-traded funds, commodities, foreign exchange, and crypto assets. Its model has traditionally centered on a platform account, where traders use eToro’s interface to access markets. By acquiring Zengo and now backing Extended, the company is adding technology that sits closer to the blockchain layer itself.
Zengo gives eToro a self-custody wallet foundation. Extended brings a perpetual futures engine. StarkWare’s StarkEx technology, on which Extended operates, provides the scaling infrastructure designed to make onchain trading faster and more efficient.
Together, these components could allow eToro to offer a product that feels closer to a centralized trading app in terms of speed and convenience, while still giving traders exposure to decentralized finance features such as self-custody and onchain settlement.
That balance has become a major competitive battleground. Centralized platforms are often easier to use, but they require traders to trust the platform with custody of funds. Decentralized platforms offer more transparency and control, but can be more complicated and, depending on the blockchain, slower or more expensive to use. The winning model for many mainstream traders may be a hybrid experience that hides much of the technical complexity while preserving the benefits of self-custody.
This is the gap eToro appears to be targeting.
Extended brings an active derivatives platform
Extended was founded by former Revolut employees and began operations in late 2024. Its founder, Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, previously worked as Revolut’s crypto head, giving the company leadership experience from one of Europe’s most prominent financial technology firms.
Although Extended is still young, it has already reported significant activity. The platform has processed more than $245 billion in trading volume across more than 100 perpetual markets since launch. That level of activity is meaningful for a newer venue and suggests that Extended has found traction in a segment heavily dominated by large centralized exchanges and a growing field of decentralized competitors.
The exchange operates on StarkWare’s StarkEx system, a scaling technology built to improve the speed and cost efficiency of blockchain-based transactions. StarkEx has been used by several crypto trading and settlement applications and has processed more than 400 million transactions with total value settled above $1 trillion, according to figures cited by the companies.
For a perpetual futures platform, infrastructure matters. Derivatives traders often require fast execution, reliable pricing, low fees, and the ability to manage collateral efficiently. Any delays or excessive transaction costs can reduce the attractiveness of an onchain venue, especially for active traders who compare decentralized platforms with centralized exchanges.
By using StarkEx, Extended is attempting to offer the benefits of onchain trading while reducing some of the performance limitations that have historically affected blockchain-based exchanges. That is likely one reason eToro found the platform attractive as a partner for Zengo.
Zengo becomes a key part of eToro’s crypto plan
Zengo, launched in 2018, built its reputation around self-custody wallet technology that removes the need for traditional seed phrases. Instead, the wallet uses multi-party computation cryptography, often referred to as MPC, to help secure assets without requiring traders to manage a single recovery phrase.
Seed phrases have long been one of the biggest usability challenges in crypto. They place full responsibility on the wallet holder, but if they are lost, stolen, or mishandled, funds can be permanently inaccessible or compromised. MPC technology divides the signing process into separate parts, reducing reliance on a single point of failure.
Zengo also offers services such as token swaps, staking, and decentralized application access. These features make it more than a simple storage tool. It functions as a gateway into blockchain-based financial activity.
When eToro acquired Zengo earlier this year, the deal was widely seen as a sign that the brokerage wanted to strengthen its self-custody and Web3 capabilities. The reported $70 million valuation showed that eToro was willing to commit meaningful capital to wallet infrastructure at a time when many financial technology companies were reassessing their crypto strategies after several years of market volatility.
The new partnership with Extended gives clearer shape to that strategy. Rather than using Zengo only as a wallet add-on, eToro appears to be developing it as a platform layer that can connect traders to more advanced onchain products.
If successful, the integration could allow a trader to hold assets in a self-custody wallet and access perpetual futures without moving funds into a conventional centralized exchange account. That kind of workflow would appeal to traders who want more direct control over assets but still expect professional-grade market access.
Perpetual futures remain a major growth market
The strategic logic behind the deal is closely tied to the growth of perpetual futures. In crypto markets, perpetual contracts have become one of the dominant venues for leverage and speculative activity. Unlike traditional futures, they do not expire. Funding payments between long and short positions are used to keep contract prices aligned with spot market prices.
This structure has made perpetual futures especially popular with active traders. They can express bullish or bearish views, hedge spot holdings, and adjust exposure quickly without managing contract expiry dates.
Combined crypto perpetual futures volume grew by 75% over two years, reaching $7.24 trillion in January 2026. Within that broader market, decentralized perpetual exchanges saw even faster growth. Their trading volume increased roughly eightfold over the same period, bringing their market share to 10.2% by early 2026.
That share is still smaller than centralized exchanges, but the pace of growth is significant. It shows that more traders are becoming comfortable with onchain derivatives, particularly as infrastructure improves and wallet interfaces become easier to use.
The opportunity for eToro is not simply to participate in a growing market. It is to bring decentralized perpetual futures to a broader base of traders who may not want to navigate complex DeFi protocols directly. If eToro can package Extended’s trading engine inside a wallet experience supported by Zengo’s custody technology, it may be able to create a more accessible route into decentralized derivatives.
A response to weaker crypto profits
The deal also needs to be viewed against eToro’s recent financial performance in crypto. The company’s crypto operations generated $13 million in profit in the first quarter of 2026, down sharply from $46 million in the same period a year earlier.
Although crypto still contributed to eToro’s results, the decline highlights how volatile revenue from digital assets can be for brokerage platforms. Spot market activity often rises and falls with broader price cycles. When retail enthusiasm cools or market volatility narrows, crypto trading revenue can weaken quickly.
Perpetual futures may offer a different type of engagement. These products are often used by more active traders and can generate volume even in mixed or declining markets, because participants can trade both long and short. That makes derivatives infrastructure attractive for platforms looking to stabilize or expand crypto-related revenue.
However, the opportunity comes with risks. Perpetual futures are complex products, often involving leverage and liquidation mechanics. They require strong risk controls, clear user education, and careful compliance processes. For a regulated brokerage brand such as eToro, expanding access to onchain derivatives will need to be handled carefully, especially across jurisdictions with different rules for crypto derivatives.
The partnership with Extended and Zengo could therefore become an important test of how far mainstream trading platforms can go in offering DeFi-style products while maintaining appropriate safeguards.
Competition is intensifying
eToro is not moving in isolation. Across the digital asset sector, trading platforms are racing to build infrastructure that combines traditional finance features with blockchain-native tools.
Some competitors have developed or announced their own blockchain networks. Others are working to expand perpetual futures beyond digital assets into markets such as commodities. These developments point to a wider trend: crypto market structure is no longer limited to Bitcoin and Ethereum spot trading. It is becoming a broader financial layer where tokenized assets, derivatives, decentralized settlement, and wallet-based access may converge.
The appeal is clear. A platform that controls more of the trading stack can potentially offer better user experience, deeper product integration, and stronger retention. Instead of sending traders to external wallets, exchanges, or protocols, platforms want to keep activity inside their own ecosystem.
For eToro, Zengo provides the custody layer and Extended provides a derivatives venue. Jump Crypto’s participation adds additional credibility. Jump Crypto is known for its deep involvement in digital asset trading and market infrastructure, and its role in the round suggests that the Extended partnership may be viewed as more than a niche wallet feature.
The competitive question is whether eToro can move quickly enough. In crypto, product cycles are fast. Traders often migrate to venues with better liquidity, lower costs, stronger incentives, or wider market coverage. A strong brand and a clean interface help, but derivatives traders also care intensely about execution quality and depth of liquidity.
Extended’s reported volume gives it a meaningful base, but integration into Zengo and eToro’s broader ecosystem will need to prove that it can attract sustained activity.
The role of StarkEx
StarkEx is a central part of the technical story. Onchain exchanges have historically faced a trade-off between decentralization and performance. Public blockchains can be transparent and open, but high demand can cause congestion and fees to rise. For derivatives, where traders may need rapid order updates and frequent position management, those limitations can be costly.
StarkWare’s technology is designed to address this by using cryptographic proofs to process transactions efficiently while retaining blockchain-based security benefits. In practical terms, that can mean lower costs and faster settlement compared with executing every transaction directly on a base blockchain.
For Extended, this infrastructure is intended to support high-speed perpetual futures trading. For eToro and Zengo, it could help make the user experience smoother. If traders are expected to move from a familiar brokerage environment into wallet-based derivatives, technical friction needs to be minimal.
The success of the partnership may depend heavily on whether the StarkEx-powered experience can match the expectations traders have from centralized platforms. Slow confirmations, confusing transaction flows, or unexpected costs could limit adoption. Conversely, a fast and intuitive interface could make onchain futures feel more mainstream.
What eToro is trying to build
The broader aim appears to be an ecosystem where traders can move between traditional and blockchain-based financial products with fewer barriers. eToro already has a large base of users familiar with stocks, ETFs, currencies, commodities, and crypto. Zengo adds self-custody and decentralized application access. Extended adds onchain perpetual futures.
If these pieces are connected effectively, eToro could offer a more complete digital asset experience. Traders might hold crypto assets in a wallet, use swaps or staking features, and access derivatives through the same environment. Over time, the platform could potentially add more onchain financial products, depending on regulatory approvals and user demand.
This would represent a notable evolution from the earlier phase of brokerage crypto offerings, where many platforms simply allowed traders to buy and sell major tokens. The next phase appears to be about infrastructure, custody choices, tokenized markets, and advanced trading products.
Chief Executive Yoni Assia has long positioned eToro as a company at the intersection of social trading, retail market access, and financial technology. The Zengo and Extended moves fit that positioning. They suggest that eToro wants to compete not only with online brokers, but also with crypto-native exchanges and DeFi platforms.
The challenge will be execution. Integrating self-custody, derivatives, compliance, and user experience is difficult. Each layer has its own technical and regulatory complexity. But if eToro can simplify the process for mainstream traders, it could gain an advantage in a market segment that is still difficult for many users to access confidently.
Regulatory questions remain
Any expansion into perpetual futures will draw attention from regulators. Crypto derivatives are treated differently around the world, and in some markets they are restricted or unavailable to retail traders. This means the rollout of any Extended-powered product through Zengo or eToro may vary by region.
The companies did not provide full details on where the integrated service will be available or what limits may apply. Those details will matter. A strong technical product is only commercially meaningful if it can be offered in enough markets to generate volume.
Regulatory clarity could also shape competitive dynamics. Platforms that can operate within clear rules may be better positioned to attract traders who want advanced products without relying on offshore venues. At the same time, tighter requirements could raise operating costs and slow product launches.
For eToro, which already operates under multiple regulatory frameworks, the compliance side may be as important as the technology. The company will need to balance innovation with the obligations that come from being a recognized brokerage brand.
What to watch next
The most important test will be whether the Extended integration into Zengo can produce meaningful trading activity. Funding rounds and partnerships often generate attention, but the real measure will be usage. Traders will judge the product on liquidity, fees, speed, interface quality, reliability, and the range of markets available.
Another key issue will be how quickly eToro expands beyond the initial integration. If the company adds more onchain products, the Extended deal may be seen as the first step in a larger DeFi strategy. If product development is slow or limited, it may remain a targeted derivatives partnership rather than a broad shift in direction.
The response from competitors will also be important. If other online brokers and trading apps accelerate wallet integrations, launch their own onchain derivatives products, or form similar partnerships, it would confirm that eToro’s move is part of a wider industry realignment.
For now, the $12.5 million round gives Extended fresh backing and gives eToro a stronger position in the fast-growing market for decentralized perpetual futures. It also shows that self-custody wallets are becoming more than storage tools. They are increasingly turning into trading gateways.
That shift may shape the next stage of crypto market development. Traders want speed, control, and access to a wider set of products. Platforms want deeper engagement and new revenue channels. The eToro, Zengo, and Extended partnership sits directly at that intersection, making it one of the more closely watched infrastructure moves in the digital asset trading sector.
Want deeper insight into perpetual futures? Explore our guide on what are perpetuals and how they work today.
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