Retail buying and selling platform eToro is increasing its decentralized finance ambitions after main a $12.5 million strategic funding spherical for Prolonged, an on-chain perpetual futures change based by former Revolut executives. The funding alerts eToro’s newest transfer to bridge conventional finance with blockchain-based buying and selling infrastructure following its latest acquisition of self-custody pockets supplier Zengo.
The funding spherical, introduced by Prolonged on July 2, additionally included participation from Bounce Crypto and funding agency Alber Blanc. Quite than serving as a standalone funding, the deal is intently tied to a broader partnership that may see Prolonged’s perpetual futures expertise built-in into Zengo, enabling customers to commerce on-chain derivatives whereas retaining full management of their digital belongings.
eToro Builds a DeFi Ecosystem Round Zengo
The Prolonged funding represents the following part of eToro‘s Web3 technique after agreeing to amass Zengo for about $70 million earlier this yr. The acquisition was designed to strengthen eToro’s self-custody capabilities whereas laying the muse for blockchain-native monetary merchandise.
Underneath the brand new partnership, Prolonged’s perpetual futures engine can be built-in immediately into the Zengo pockets, permitting customers to entry decentralized derivatives with out surrendering custody of their crypto holdings. Zengo’s multi-party computation (MPC) pockets structure eliminates the necessity for conventional seed phrases whereas sustaining person possession of personal keys. The pockets already helps token swaps, staking, and decentralized software entry, making it a pure gateway for added DeFi providers.
Past derivatives, eToro has indicated it intends to progressively broaden the provision of decentralized finance merchandise throughout its broader buying and selling platform. The corporate stated the partnership goals to enhance entry to international monetary markets by way of next-generation on-chain infrastructure whereas exploring methods to attach conventional monetary belongings with decentralized buying and selling environments.
The technique additionally comes as eToro seems to be to diversify its crypto enterprise. The corporate has been increasing past spot buying and selling into infrastructure and self-custody options, reflecting rising demand amongst buyers for blockchain-based monetary merchandise that don’t depend on centralized intermediaries.
eToro leads $12.5 Million Spherical In Onchain Perps Trade Prolonged
Prolonged Targets Institutional-Grade On-Chain Buying and selling
Prolonged was based by former Revolut staff, together with CEO Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, with the purpose of bringing professional-grade derivatives buying and selling to decentralized markets.
The change is constructed on StarkWare‘s StarkEx scaling engine, enabling high-throughput buying and selling whereas settling transactions on Ethereum. In contrast to centralized futures exchanges, Prolonged permits customers to keep up custody of their belongings all through the buying and selling course of whereas benefiting from execution speeds designed for energetic merchants.
Perpetual futures, generally often called “perps,” have develop into the dominant derivatives product in crypto markets as a result of they don’t have any expiration date and permit merchants to keep up leveraged positions indefinitely by way of periodic funding funds.
Since opening public buying and selling in late 2024, Prolonged has steadily expanded its providing. The platform now helps greater than 100 perpetual markets and has reportedly processed over $245 billion in cumulative buying and selling quantity as of June 2026. Future roadmap gadgets embody spot buying and selling, tokenized real-world belongings (RWAs), unified margin performance, and multi-asset collateral help.
Conventional Brokers Race Towards On-Chain Perpetuals
eToro’s funding displays a broader trade pattern as conventional brokerages more and more embrace blockchain-based derivatives as a substitute of constructing proprietary infrastructure from scratch.
Simply someday earlier than the Prolonged announcement, Robinhood unveiled its personal growth into perpetual futures by way of Lighter alongside tokenized shares and different decentralized finance merchandise for European customers. In the meantime, main crypto platforms together with Coinbase have expanded their very own derivatives choices, whereas prediction market operators equivalent to Kalshi and Polymarket have additionally entered perpetual-style markets.
The rising competitors has fueled what many trade observers describe because the race to develop into an “all the things change”—a platform combining conventional investing, crypto buying and selling, tokenized belongings, derivatives, funds, and decentralized finance inside a single ecosystem.
Perpetual DEXs Proceed to Acquire Market Share
The timing of eToro’s funding coincides with accelerating adoption of decentralized perpetual futures exchanges.
In response to CoinGecko’s 2026 Crypto Perpetuals Report, decentralized exchanges have steadily captured a bigger share of the perpetual futures market. Open curiosity on perpetual DEXs elevated from roughly 3.6% in early 2025 to 13.5% in 2026, whilst centralized exchanges equivalent to Binance and OKX proceed to dominate general buying and selling volumes.
That progress is attracting each enterprise capital and established monetary companies in search of publicity to on-chain market infrastructure. Quite than competing immediately with decentralized exchanges, brokerages are more and more partnering with crypto-native platforms that already possess the buying and selling expertise whereas contributing regulatory experience, buyer distribution, and mainstream person acquisition.
For eToro, backing Prolonged gives a direct entry level into one in every of crypto’s fastest-growing market segments whereas reinforcing its broader technique of mixing conventional investing with decentralized finance. As extra monetary establishments discover tokenized belongings and blockchain-based buying and selling, partnerships between retail brokers and DeFi infrastructure suppliers are prone to develop into more and more widespread.
