European Broker eToro Doubles Down On Cryptocurrencies

"We want to make it easy for people to own, manage and exchange assets on blockchain, that's what the Blockchain Wallet is all about," said Yoni Assia, eToro's co-founder and CEO. "Blockchain is the biggest innovation in financial services since the introduction of computers into finance, and has the potential to disrupt how all financial services companies will work in the next 20 years."

eToro built the wallet with Colored Coins, an open source protocol that creates digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain. Users can purchase cryptocurrencies through eToro and register them on the blockchain using Colored Coins technology. Assia helped establish the Colored Coins concept years ago and now serves on the board of Colu, a company developing blockchain-based local currencies. He entered the cryptocurrency space in 2010.

The brokerage operates from offices in Cyprus, Israel and the UK and counts 4.5 million customers. The company runs a marketplace where users trade currencies, commodities, stock indices and CFDs. The CopyTrader tool lets investors mirror another trader's positions and decisions. eToro began offering Bitcoin trading in early 2014 and added Ethereum in March 2017.

Crypto trading activity on eToro surged 4,500% over the past 12 months as Bitcoin and Ethereum prices climbed to record levels. "The eToro trading community has been quick to embrace the clear opportunities in cryptocurrencies," said Mati Greenspan, senior markets analyst at eToro. "Cryptocurrency is the future of forex. And over the last 12 months we've seen a 4x growth in traders accessing this market. […] The rapid growth in the adoption and price of cryptocurrencies only marks the first few steps on the long-journey to establishing cryptocurrencies as a dominant force in forex trading. We expect cryptocurrency trading volumes to get much bigger over the coming years."