eToro Acquires Zengo For DeFi Access

Buying Zengo turns eToro from a broker that mainly routes customer trades inside its own app into a gateway to on chain markets that live outside the brokerage. Zengo gives eToro the wallet layer needed for self custody, app connections, staking, swaps, and eventually products like perpetuals and tokenized assets, while fitting eToro’s push to add more recurring crypto revenue beyond one time trading spreads and interest income.1 2 3 4 5

• The practical unlock is custody. eToro’s core app is a custodial brokerage, but decentralized products usually require a user controlled wallet that can sign blockchain transactions. Zengo’s MPC design removes seed phrases and splits signing across the device and server, making self custody simpler for mainstream users while preserving on chain access.1 2 6
• The product roadmap is already visible. eToro said the deal supports tokenized assets and decentralized trading models like perpetuals, and its Q1 2026 shareholder update and Q2 2026 earnings presentation tie Zengo directly to DeFi access, yields, perpetuals, prediction markets, and a much larger universe of on chain assets.1 7 8
• This follows the same playbook seen elsewhere in crypto, where platforms buy missing infrastructure to move up the stack. Kraken bought Reap to add stablecoin payments and cards on top of its exchange, while eToro is adding wallet based market access on top of its social brokerage, so more of the crypto workflow happens inside its ecosystem.5

The next step is a hybrid model where eToro keeps its simple brokerage front end but pipes advanced users into self custodial, always on crypto products in the background. If that rollout works, eToro can capture more wallet activity, staking, yield, and tokenized asset flows without depending as heavily on volatile trading bursts in its core app.1 3 4 8