As retail crypto trades collapse 73%, eToro drops $231 million to capture active US stock traders

eToro’s users executed 1.4 million crypto trades in July, down 73% from a year earlier. The average amount invested per trade halved to $182. In the same Aug. 11 update, the trading platform agreed to pay consideration of up to $231 million for TradeZero. TradeZero is a US-focused brokerage serving active stock traders.The combination is consistent with eToro expanding from a profitable multi-asset base, not a company in broad distress. It does not establish that the crypto decline motivated the acquisition.Meanwhile, the July slowdown followed a second quarter in which eToro’s net contribution rose 9% to $229 million. GAAP net income increased 77% to $53 million. Therefore, the filing indicates that stronger equity trading helped offset weaker crypto contribution. Management separately cited unquantified strength in CopyTrading.However, eToro’s crypto accounting requires care. It reported $1.346 billion of second-quarter cryptoasset revenue, but that was a gross figure rather than segment profit. The company also booked $1.354 billion of cryptoasset cost of revenue and $19.7 million of net trading income from cryptoasset derivatives.Taken together, those figures imply approximatel...