eToro backed Extended with a reported $12.5M. The broker wants leveraged crypto bets inside Zengo.
The perps race is moving from crypto exchanges into retail apps, and eToro wants its wallet deal to pay off fast.
CryptoVibe Desk · etoro · extended · zengo
- →Bankless reported eToro led a $12.5M round for Extended, an onchain perpetual futures platform built by former Revolut employees.
- →The reported deal matters because eToro plans to plug Extended into Zengo, the self-custody wallet it bought in April 2026.
- →Watch the Zengo rollout before Q4 2026, because an actual in-wallet perps product is the proof point.
- Perpetual futures → Perpetual futures are leveraged bets on an asset's price that do not have an expiry date.
- Self-custody wallet → A self-custody wallet lets users hold their own crypto keys instead of leaving assets with an exchange.
- Onchain → Onchain means the trade or record happens directly on a blockchain instead of only inside a company's database.
eToro led a reported $12.5M round for Extended. Bankless reported the figure this week. Extended is an onchain perpetual futures platform founded by former Revolut employees.
The number needs a caveat. The Defiant's summary says neither company disclosed the investment size. Bankless published the $12.5M figure earlier, but it is still unconfirmed until eToro or Extended says it directly.
The strategic part is cleaner. Bankless says eToro plans to integrate Extended's perps engine into Zengo. eToro bought the self-custody wallet for $70M in April 2026. That makes the wallet purchase look less like storage and more like distribution.
If you're using retail crypto apps, this is the product shift to watch. Brokers don't want users leaving the app to trade leveraged crypto bets somewhere else. Robinhood, Coinbase, Kalshi, and Polymarket are already pushing toward more always-open trading products.
Bankless called this the Everything-Exchange race. The phrase is clunky, but the direction is real. The app that holds your coins wants to become the app where you trade every risk.
That is good for retention and risky for users. Perps are not spot trades. They can wipe out small balances fast when leverage, fees, and bad timing meet in one tab.
eToro's bet is that Zengo gives it a cleaner entry point. A self-custody wallet already sits close to user funds. Adding Extended makes the next click obvious, and that's the catch.
The tape matches the story, for now. Retail brokers are no longer just listing coins. They are buying or backing the engines that keep users trading after the listing buzz fades.
eToro's choice to put Extended inside Zengo is aggressive because the $70M wallet deal only makes sense if it turns custody into active trading.
Watch before Q4 2026 for a live Zengo perps beta using Extended; no in-wallet order ticket means the integration is still only a deal headline.
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