eToro's Shift to Retail Investing
eToro
This shift shows eToro is moving from being a trader’s tool to being a retail investing destination with trading layered on top. Early eToro made most of its money when users opened leveraged CFD positions and held them overnight. Today the product is built to catch a much wider user, someone buying fractional stocks, copying another investor with at least $200, or putting $500 into a themed portfolio, and the revenue mix now leans more on equities and interest income than pure speculative trading.
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The workflow changed with the customer. The old core user was a frequent trader in forex and CFDs. The newer core user can scroll a social feed, follow a stock idea, auto copy a popular investor, buy crypto with a 1% spread, or just hold stocks and ETFs. That makes eToro look closer to Robinhood and Public than to a pure CFD broker.
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The money model changed more slowly than the product. Equities, commodities, and currencies made up 42% of 2024 revenue, crypto was 25%, net interest was 20%, and subscriptions were still negligible. So even as the audience broadens, eToro still earns most when customers trade, convert currencies, withdraw cash, or leave balances that generate interest.
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Competition now comes from three directions at once. Robinhood fights for mainstream retail investors with a larger funded account base and stronger US scale. Coinbase and Kraken win serious crypto traders with lower fees and deeper tools. FOREX.com remains the cleaner comp for pro style CFD trading. eToro sits in the middle by combining social features with a multi asset account.
The next phase is about turning this broader audience into steadier revenue. Securities lending, staking, subscriptions, options outside the US, and eToro Money all push the business toward recurring income instead of relying so heavily on bursts of trading activity. If that works, eToro becomes less cyclical and more like a global investing super app anchored by social distribution.