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 current acquisition of self-custody pockets supplier Zengo.
The funding spherical, introduced by Prolonged on July 2, additionally included participation from Soar Crypto and funding agency Alber Blanc. Slightly 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 subsequent part of eToro‘s Web3 technique after agreeing to amass Zengo for about $70 million earlier this 12 months. The acquisition was designed to strengthen eToro’s self-custody capabilities whereas laying the muse for blockchain-native monetary merchandise.
Below the brand new partnership, Prolonged’s perpetual futures engine will likely be built-in instantly 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 regularly develop the provision of decentralized finance merchandise throughout its broader buying and selling platform. The corporate stated the partnership goals to enhance entry to world monetary markets via 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 traders for blockchain-based monetary merchandise that don’t depend on centralized intermediaries.
eToro leads $12.5 Million Spherical In Onchain Perps Change Prolonged
Prolonged Targets Institutional-Grade On-Chain Buying and selling
Prolonged was based by former Revolut staff, together with CEO Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, with the aim 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 take care of custody of their belongings all through the buying and selling course of whereas benefiting from execution speeds designed for lively merchants.
Perpetual futures, generally often called “perps,” have turn into the dominant derivatives product in crypto markets as a result of they haven’t any expiration date and permit merchants to take care of leveraged positions indefinitely via 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 embrace spot buying and selling, tokenized real-world belongings (RWAs), unified margin performance, and multi-asset collateral assist.
Conventional Brokers Race Towards On-Chain Perpetuals
eToro’s funding displays a broader trade development as conventional brokerages more and more embrace blockchain-based derivatives as an alternative of constructing proprietary infrastructure from scratch.
Simply at some point earlier than the Prolonged announcement, Robinhood unveiled its personal enlargement into perpetual futures via 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 reminiscent of Kalshi and Polymarket have additionally entered perpetual-style markets.
The rising competitors has fueled what many trade observers describe because the race to turn into an “every thing 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 accordance with 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, at the same time as centralized exchanges reminiscent of Binance and OKX proceed to dominate general buying and selling volumes.
That development is attracting each enterprise capital and established monetary corporations searching for publicity to on-chain market infrastructure. Slightly than competing instantly 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 supplies a direct entry level into one in all 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 more likely to turn into more and more widespread.
