eToro Group Ltd. (ETOR)

How it makes money

eToro earns money in four ways: the spread and fees it takes when users trade, the interest it earns on user cash and on margin lending, currency-conversion and account fees, and subscriptions. One accounting detail matters more than anything else here. Crypto trades are executed as principal, so the filing books the entire sale proceeds as 'Revenue from cryptoassets' — $12.98bn in 2025 — and the purchase cost separately as 'Cost of revenue from cryptoassets' — $12.93bn. The difference, about $43m, is what the crypto spot business actually contributed. That is why the headline revenue line is enormous and almost meaningless as a measure of size. Management steers by 'net contribution', revenue net of the variable costs of producing it, which was $868m in 2025 against $788m in 2024. Underneath that, the economics are: trading spreads on equities, commodities and currencies ($399m of net trading income), net interest from users ($213m), crypto (spot plus derivatives), and currency conversion and other income ($96m).

Revenue by segment

eToro's one hard-to-copy asset is its social layer: a public feed of real portfolios and the CopyTrader mechanism, where popular investors are paid to be copied. The more investors publish track records, the more useful the platform is to beginners who do not want to pick stocks themselves — a genuine network effect, and the reason eToro is recognised as a brand among first-time investors in Europe. It is narrow, not wide. Nothing stops a user from opening an account at a competing broker: eToro spent $209m on selling and marketing in 2025 against $868m of net contribution, which is what a business still buying its users looks like. Its own filing lists competition from fintechs, incumbent banks and less-regulated venues as a principal risk, and several rivals now run copy-trading features of their own.

Demand is the appetite of retail investors to trade, and that appetite is procyclical in the extreme. Activity peaks when markets are rising and crypto is in the news — new accounts open, existing users trade more, spreads earn more — and drains away in flat or falling markets, exactly when marketing costs the most per new customer. The interest line adds a second, different cycle: it grew with the rate-rise years and shrinks as policy rates fall, independently of trading volumes. The one partly stabilising element is the stock of client balances, which earns interest whether or not anyone trades.

Key risks

• Results swing hard with market volatility — The company discloses that its operating results have fluctuated and will continue to fluctuate significantly from period to period, because the business depends on conditions in securities, cryptoasset, currency and commodity markets. A quiet quarter means fewer trades and less revenue, and abrupt or erratic market movements may leave it unable to execute or adjust its risk management in time — a risk it flags specifically for extended-hours trading, where liquidity can vanish.
• Keeping and adding users — eToro states that its success requires retaining existing users, adding new ones and keeping them engaged, and that many factors could reduce engagement. It separately warns that its historical growth rates may not indicate future growth, noting that growth in funded accounts has slowed and that growth pursued through acquisitions is unpredictable.
• A regulatory landscape that keeps changing — The filing describes an extensive, complex, overlapping and constantly changing regulatory environment, with heterogeneous requirements across the many jurisdictions eToro serves and evolving cryptoasset rules such as MiCA and the Travel Rule. It separately flags obligations on sanctions, fraud, anti-money-laundering, counter-terrorist-financing and anti-bribery, where its geographic spread raises the chance of a violation and sanctions enforcement is strict liability.
• Interest rates cut both ways — The company says it is directly and indirectly exposed to interest rate fluctuations: net interest income moves with central-bank policy rates, and it notes the possibility of regulatory restrictions on earning interest on client balances at all.
• Dependence on third parties, and counterparty default — Executing user trades, placing hedges and providing payment services depends on third-party liquidity providers and banking relationships, whose termination could disrupt operations. The company also discloses counterparty risk: leveraged users can leave it with credit losses, and the insolvency of a bank holding its assets would affect recovery. It adds that adequate insurance is not always available, particularly for cryptoasset crime and certain cyber incidents.
• Users lose money, and that is a business risk — Because eToro provides real-time services in volatile markets, its users are exposed to loss, and the company discloses that user dissatisfaction from those losses can turn into complaints, litigation and reputational harm. It lists brand and reputation as a risk in its own right, damaged by litigation, cybersecurity breaches or regulatory action.

There is effectively none, and the filing discloses no customer accounting for a material share of revenue. eToro's revenue comes from roughly 3.85 million funded retail accounts spread across many countries, so no single client matters. The concentration that does exist is of a different kind: a large majority of gross revenue passes through one asset class, cryptoassets, and the company depends on a limited set of third-party liquidity providers and banks to execute and settle — a dependency it lists among its risk factors.