eToro just wrote a $12.5 million check to Extended, an on-chain perpetual futures exchange built by former Revolut crypto team members. The investment, announced on July 2, also brings Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc into Extended’s cap table.

But the money is only half the story. eToro is simultaneously integrating Extended’s perpetual futures engine with Zengo, the self-custodial wallet it acquired for roughly $70 million back in April.

What Extended actually does

Extended launched on the Starknet mainnet in August 2025. Since then, it has opened up trading across more than 50 markets, with leverage options stretching up to 100x.

The platform uses a hybrid central limit order book model, commonly shortened to CLOB. In English: it combines the matching efficiency of traditional exchange order books with the transparency and settlement guarantees of a blockchain.

Zengo ties the bow

Zengo is the connective tissue in this deal. The self-custodial wallet, which eToro scooped up for approximately $70 million in April 2026, now serves over 2 million users worldwide.

Its core selling point is multi-party computation technology, or MPC. Traditional crypto wallets rely on a single private key. Lose it, and your funds are gone forever. MPC splits that key into multiple shares distributed across different parties, so no single point of failure can wipe out a user’s holdings.

By plugging Extended’s futures engine into Zengo, eToro is effectively letting users trade leveraged derivatives from a self-custodial wallet. The integration creates a closed loop for eToro: users can onboard through Zengo, trade perpetual futures on Extended, and maintain full control of their keys throughout the process.

Why eToro is going on-chain now

eToro listed on the Nasdaq in May 2025. Since then, it has been expanding into on-chain offerings that include prediction markets and tokenized assets.

With 40 million registered users, eToro has distribution that most DeFi protocols would trade their governance tokens for. Robinhood has been steadily building out its own crypto and DeFi features, representing real competitive pressure in the retail brokerage market.

What this means for investors

For eToro shareholders, the $12.5 million investment in Extended is relatively small compared to the $70 million Zengo acquisition. Perpetual futures are the single largest product category in crypto trading by volume, dwarfing spot markets on most exchanges.

Starknet, the Layer 2 network where Extended operates, gets a credibility boost from having a Nasdaq-listed company route trading volume through its chain. Regulators in multiple jurisdictions have already cracked down on high-leverage crypto derivatives for retail users, and eToro will need to navigate that patchwork carefully.