eToro leads $12.5 million round for onchain derivatives startup Extended
DeFi & Yields ·
The broker will fold perpetual futures into its Zengo wallet as part of a wider push into DeFi, while rival brokerages pursue similar blockchain strategies.
eToro led a $12.5 million funding round for Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange founded by former Revolut employees, with Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc also participating, according to Coindesk. The investment builds on eToro's $70 million acquisition of self-custody wallet Zengo, announced in April, and gives a clearer shape to the company's onchain strategy.
eToro plans to integrate Extended's perpetual futures engine directly into Zengo, letting users trade onchain derivatives while keeping custody of their own assets. Over time, the company intends to bring broader DeFi products into its core platform as well. Elad Lavi, eToro's executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, said the moves respond to growing user demand for seamless access to DeFi products and are central to expanding the company's Web3 ecosystem.
Extended, led by former Revolut crypto head Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, has 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, describing its next phase as building the infrastructure and partnerships needed to support a broader stage of onchain derivatives.
The investment lands amid a wider scramble among brokerages to add blockchain-based trading infrastructure. Rival broker Robinhood rolled out its own blockchain, expanded its tokenized stock offering, and said it plans to extend its perpetual futures business beyond crypto into commodities such as gold and oil. Coinbase has separately expanded into perpetual futures, and prediction market operator Kalshi has moved into related territory, as the boundaries between crypto exchanges, prediction markets and traditional brokerages continue to blur.
What remains unclear is the timeline for rolling perpetual futures out inside Zengo, and how quickly eToro will extend DeFi products to its core platform beyond the wallet. Also unresolved is how eToro's approach will compare in scale or design to Robinhood's newly launched blockchain and expanded perpetuals push, as brokerages jockey to become a broader "everything exchange" for financial markets.