eToro Leads $12.5M Round for Onchain Derivatives Startup Extended

Digital broker eToro has led a $12.5 million funding round for Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange founded by former Revolut employees, as traditional brokerages accelerate their push into decentralized finance. Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc also participated in the round.

Extended was founded by Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, formerly head of crypto at London-based fintech Revolut. As of June, the platform had processed more than $245 billion in cumulative trading volume and supports over 100 perpetual markets. The company said it plans to expand into spot trading, tokenized real-world assets and multi-asset collateral.

The investment follows eToro's $70 million acquisition of self-custody wallet Zengo, announced in April. The company plans to integrate Extended's perpetual futures engine directly into the Zengo wallet, allowing users to trade onchain derivatives while retaining custody of their assets. Over time, eToro intends to roll out broader DeFi products across its core platform.

'We are seeing growing demand from our users for seamless access to DeFi products,' said Elad Lavi, eToro's executive vice president of corporate development and strategy. '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.'

Ouriel Ohayon, managing director of Zengo, said in a statement: 'Capital markets are increasingly converging with digital asset infrastructure. eToro's investment in Extended reflects a mutual conviction that the future of trading will be digital, accessible and can operate 24/7, beyond the traditional trading week.'

The funding round comes amid intensifying competition among digital brokerages to build blockchain-based trading infrastructure. Rival broker Robinhood this week launched its own blockchain, expanded its tokenized stock offering and announced plans to extend perpetual futures into commodities including gold and oil.

Perpetual futures, once confined largely to crypto-native platforms, have become one of the industry's fastest-growing product categories. Trading platforms are increasingly listing contracts tied to equities, commodities and other real-world assets, narrowing the distinction between crypto exchanges and traditional financial venues.

The trend extends beyond eToro and Robinhood. Coinbase has expanded into perpetual futures, while prediction market operator Kalshi recently entered the same space. The moves reflect a broader industry push toward what analysts describe as an 'everything exchange' model — a single platform combining crypto trading, tokenized assets, derivatives and event contracts.

Fakhrutdinov described the company's trajectory in a statement: 'The first phase was building for DeFi natives. The next is expanding the infrastructure and partnerships needed to support the next stage of onchain derivatives.'

eToro trades on Nasdaq under the ticker ETOR.