eToro crypto income jumps 2,245 per cent in a year
The social investment platform, eToro, earned $264m from crypto trading commissions in Q2 2021, up from $11.26m the previous year.
Commissions from crypto trading accounted for 73 per cent of a total $362m which the platform earned through trading fees. In the second quarter of 2020 crypto asset trades accounted for just 7 per cent.
Yoni Assia, CEO and Co-founder of eToro, attributed the platform’s success to its ability to identify long term trends in investor behaviour.
He said: “We believe that investors are primarily looking for three things from a platform: (1) simple access to the assets they want to invest in, including cryptoassets, (2) an intuitive and user-friendly mobile interface and (3) financial education.”
Clearly the model is working for the 2.6 million new users who registered on the platform between April and June 2021.
In recent months, the site has added ten new crypto assets to its platform including Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, both currencies based on memes of the popular Japanese dog breed. Over the period bitcoin, ripple, ethereum, cardano and doge generated the most interest from investors and saw the highest trading volumes.
eToro is not the only retail investment platform to experience high demand for crypto. Rivals Robinhood saw crypto transaction volume jump from $5m in Q2 of 2020 to $233m in 2021, an increase of 4,560 per cent.
Despite surging interest, however, eToro recorded a net loss of $89m for the period.
The company attributed losses to a non-cash charge of $71 million in compensation for employees and $36 million in fees for a merger to be completed ahead of eToro’s public listing.
Read more: Crypto adoption jumps 881 per cent in a year