eToro Invests in Extended to Bring Onchain Perpetuals to Zengo

eToro has invested in Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange, as the retail trading company expands beyond conventional crypto trading and moves deeper into decentralized finance.

The strategic investment will support a partnership between Extended and Zengo, the self-custody wallet owned by eToro. The companies plan to make onchain derivatives more accessible while allowing users to retain control of their digital assets.

Neither eToro nor Extended disclosed the size of eToro’s investment. However, CoinDesk reported that the funding round raised $12.5 million, with eToro leading the investment.

eToro becomes a strategic investor in Extended

Extended announced that eToro had joined the company as a strategic investor. The exchange said the partnership would focus on expanding access to global financial markets through next-generation onchain infrastructure.

The deal represents more than a financial investment. According to the initial report on the Extended partnership, the companies want to create a link between traditional financial assets and decentralized trading environments.

Extended could provide the derivatives infrastructure behind that strategy, while Zengo would give users a self-custody interface through which they could access supported products.

Company	Role in the partnership
eToro	Strategic investor and global trading platform
Extended	Onchain perpetual futures and derivatives infrastructure
Zengo	Self-custody wallet and potential user access point
Starknet	Blockchain infrastructure used to validate and settle Extended transactions

Extended could bring perpetual futures to Zengo

eToro plans to integrate Extended’s perpetual futures technology with Zengo, giving wallet users access to onchain derivatives without requiring them to transfer custody of their assets to a centralized exchange.

Perpetual futures allow traders to speculate on an asset’s price without owning it or dealing with a fixed contract expiration date. These products often support leverage, which can increase both potential gains and potential losses.

The Extended trading platform combines crypto and traditional financial markets under a unified margin system. It also supports multiple forms of collateral and yield-generating assets.

• Onchain perpetual futures trading
• Self-custodied funds held in smart contracts
• Crypto and traditional financial markets
• Unified margin across supported positions
• Leverage of up to 100 times on selected markets
• Transaction validation and settlement through Starknet

How Extended’s self-custody model works

Extended describes itself as a self-custodial perpetuals exchange. User funds remain in onchain smart contracts, and Extended does not have custodial access to those assets.

The exchange performs transaction validation, trading logic, and core risk checks onchain. Its systems settle transactions on Starknet, a zero-knowledge blockchain network secured by Ethereum.

According to Extended’s product description, its smart contracts are open source and its state transitions can be independently verified. This structure aims to combine the performance of a conventional trading platform with the transparency of decentralized infrastructure.

Feature	Extended’s approach
Asset custody	Users retain custody through onchain smart contracts
Trading products	Perpetual futures across several asset classes
Settlement	Transactions settle through Starknet
Margin	One margin system can cover multiple markets
Transparency	Onchain validation and open-source contracts

eToro completed its Zengo acquisition in April

The Extended investment follows eToro’s acquisition of Zengo, a self-custody wallet company known for using multi-party computation technology instead of a conventional seed phrase.

eToro announced an agreement to buy Zengo on April 15, 2026. The company said the deal would accelerate its plan to connect traditional finance with onchain infrastructure, including tokenized assets, prediction markets, and perpetual futures.

The acquisition officially closed on April 30, according to eToro’s first-quarter financial results. Reports valued the transaction at around $70 million, but eToro did not confirm a purchase price.

Why Zengo matters to eToro’s onchain strategy

Zengo gives eToro a self-custodial product that operates separately from its conventional brokerage and regulated exchange services. Users control assets through the wallet while interacting directly with supported blockchain applications.

The wallet uses multi-party computation to divide the cryptographic process required to authorize transactions. This removes the conventional single private key and seed phrase that users normally need to protect.

When it announced the deal, eToro said acquiring Zengo would give customers more choice in how they access digital assets. It also identified perpetuals as one of the decentralized trading models it wanted to support.

• Self-custody without a conventional seed phrase
• Access to decentralized applications
• Crypto swaps and staking
• Fiat on-ramp and off-ramp services
• Potential access to prediction markets and perpetual futures

Extended fills an important gap for eToro

Zengo provides the wallet and asset-control layer, but eToro still needs trading infrastructure to offer decentralized derivatives. Extended could fill that gap by supplying markets, order execution, margin systems, and onchain settlement.

The partnership could eventually let a Zengo user open a perpetual futures position through the wallet while keeping collateral under self-custody. Extended would handle the derivatives infrastructure, while the blockchain would record and settle the activity.

Coverage of eToro’s investment in Extended also indicated that the company intends to bring additional decentralized finance products to its main platform over time.

Extended was founded by former Revolut executives

Extended, previously known as X10, was founded by former Revolut employees. Its founder and CEO, Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, previously led crypto operations at the financial technology company.

The exchange has developed markets covering cryptocurrencies and products linked to equities, foreign exchange, and commodities. This cross-asset structure aligns closely with eToro’s existing position as a platform offering several investment categories.

Details of the strategic investment indicate that eToro sees Extended as infrastructure for connecting its traditional financial services with decentralized trading.

eToro joins a wider brokerage shift toward blockchain

Large retail brokers are increasingly building blockchain-based products that extend beyond buying and selling crypto on centralized platforms.

Robinhood launched the mainnet of Robinhood Chain on July 1, 2026. The Arbitrum-based Layer 2 network supports financial services, tokenized assets, and decentralized applications.

The company also introduced new decentralized finance products as part of its Robinhood Chain mainnet launch. These developments increase pressure on competing brokers to build their own onchain services.

Broker	Onchain strategy
eToro	Zengo self-custody wallet and Extended derivatives partnership
Robinhood	Proprietary Layer 2 network, tokenized assets, and DeFi products
Traditional crypto exchanges	Wallets, Layer 2 networks, staking, and decentralized applications

What the partnership means for users

The partnership does not mean that every eToro or Zengo customer can immediately trade Extended perpetual futures. The companies have not published a launch date, supported-country list, fee structure, or final product design.

Regulatory availability may also differ by market. Perpetual futures and other leveraged crypto derivatives face restrictions in several jurisdictions, particularly when providers offer them to retail customers.

eToro’s original Zengo acquisition announcement stressed that decentralized applications accessed through the wallet operate separately from eToro’s regulated services. Users interact directly with third-party protocols and remain responsible for their transactions.

Perpetual futures carry substantial risks

Onchain derivatives can provide continuous market access and transparent settlement, but they also introduce major risks. Leverage can liquidate a position after a relatively small adverse price movement.

Smart contract vulnerabilities, unstable collateral, network congestion, oracle failures, and rapidly changing funding rates can create additional losses. Self-custody also places more responsibility on the user to secure wallet access and verify every transaction.

• Leverage can amplify losses.
• Positions can face automatic liquidation.
• Funding payments can increase holding costs.
• Smart contracts may contain vulnerabilities.
• Transactions usually cannot be reversed.
• Regulatory protections may not apply.

eToro is building a broader decentralized finance business

The Extended investment shows how eToro plans to use Zengo as more than a standalone crypto wallet. It could become the customer-facing gateway for a broader range of onchain financial products.

The company already identified tokenization, yield products, prediction markets, and perpetual futures as areas of interest. Extended adds specialized derivatives infrastructure that eToro would otherwise need to build internally.

eToro’s latest acquisition update confirmed that Zengo became part of the company at the end of April. The Extended partnership now provides one of the clearest examples of how eToro may use that acquisition.

What happens next?

eToro, Extended, and Zengo have not announced when their integrated product will launch. They also have not confirmed which Extended markets will appear in Zengo or whether access will extend to the main eToro platform.

The first integration will likely focus on connecting Zengo’s self-custody technology with Extended’s perpetual futures system. Broader support for equities, foreign exchange, commodities, or tokenized real-world assets could follow later.

Robinhood’s expansion into blockchain-based financial services demonstrates how quickly retail brokers are moving into this market. eToro’s investment in Extended suggests it wants Zengo to play a central role in its response.

FAQ