"When commission-free trading apps make over $100m in commission a month"

 From FT Alphaville:

eToro’s commission fees increased by 141% in Q1. Not bad for a firm that just wants to “empower people to grow their knowledge and wealth”.

If you are someone who spends any time watching videos on YouTube, the chances are that you will have seen one of eToro’s ads. Probably one of the ones in which they tell you how easy it is to trade stocks on their platform, commission-free. The Israel-based stock, CFD and crypto trading house has even brought in some pretty big celebs for these ads, like Alec Baldwin:...

....MUCH MORE

If you can't trust your gamified trading platform who can you trust?

Actually, as noted in March 20's "Crypto and Equity Trading Platform eToro Came Public via a $10.4 Billion SPAC Deal":
Everything I know about eToro came from a House of Commons Treasury Committee hearing on crypto assets. That and the adverts. For a while the ads were ubiquitous. But mainly the committee hearing.

*****

From the House of Commons:

Treasury Committee 

Wednesday 20 June 2018 Meeting started at 3.11pm, ended 5.23pm 

Here's the transcript of the oral testimony, The witnesses are:

• Marco Santori, President and Chief Legal Officer, Blockchain,
• Obi Nwosu, CEO and Founder, Coinfloor,
• Iqbal Gandham, Chairman, CryptoUK and Managing Director, eToro
• Izabella Kaminska, Editor, FT Alphaville

....MUCH MORE

We did have one other post on eToro: 

Online poker, it's a bitch, what with being illegal and all. What we really need is a legal way to lose lots of money online, using an addictive videogame-style interface. Enter eToro: where Reuters 3000 meets Nintendo Wii!

There's some kind of genius here. FX trading has historically been practiced by a combination of well-paid sell-side professionals and a few delusional stay-at-home day-traders who think they can beat the market. What's been missing from the market is inveterate gamblers who don't particularly mind losing money so long as they think there's a chance they can win.

Until now. With eToro, you can see a screen where three or four different currencies compete in a footrace. Or play a different game, where two currencies have a tug-of-war match. Whatever game you choose, your commissions are guaranteed to be stratospheric:

When a user registers for a real money account, that account is actually opened at one of two foreign exchange trading brokers, RetailFX or IFX Markets. eToro decides which broker based on where it expects to make the most commissions on trades the user makes....

That was in 2007.