Digital broker eToro (ETOR) is doubling down on decentralized finance (DeFi) as online brokerages race to bring blockchain-based trading to mainstream investors.
The company led a $12.5 million funding round for Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange founded by former employees of London-based fintech Revolut. Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc also participated in the round.
The investment builds on eToro's $70 million acquisition of self-custody wallet Zengo, announced in April, and offers a clearer picture of the company's onchain strategy.
"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."
EToro plans to integrate Extended's perpetual futures engine directly into the Zengo wallet, giving users access to onchain derivatives while retaining custody of their assets.
Over time, the company plans to bring broader DeFi products into the core eToro platform, Lavi said.
The move comes as competition among digital brokerages is shifting toward blockchain-based trading infrastructure. On Wednesday, rival broker Robinhood rolled out its own blockchain, expanded its tokenized stock offering and said it plans to extend its perpetual futures business beyond cryptocurrencies into commodities such as gold and oil.
Perpetual futures, once a niche crypto product, have become one of the industry's fastest-growing markets. Alongside cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, trading platforms are increasingly listing contracts tied to equities, commodities and other real-world assets, blurring the line between crypto-native and traditional financial markets.
Led by former Revolut crypto head Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, Extended had processed more than $245 billion in trading volume as of June and supports more than 100 perpetual markets, according to the company.
The firm said it plans to expand into spot trading, tokenized real-world assets and multi-asset collateral.
"The first phase was building for DeFi natives," Fakhrutdinov said in a statement. "The next is expanding the infrastructure and partnerships needed to support the next stage of onchain derivatives."
The investment points to a broader race to become what is best described as the "everything exchange" or "everything app" for financial markets. Coinbase (COIN) has expanded into perpetual futures, Robinhood is pairing tokenized stocks with event contracts and commodity perps, and prediction market operator Kalshi recently entered the perpetual futures business.
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