Bought Bitcoin at $5, Sold for $50M: Yoni Assia, eToro CEO

Yoni Assia, the CEO of trading platform eToro, has revealed that the company once bought Bitcoin at just $5 and eventually made a $50 million profit from the investment. This wasn’t some recent bet either. Assia said the purchase was made back in the early 2010s, long before Bitcoin became a household name.

“We were very early to crypto,” Assia said in an interview with CNBC, just after eToro made its debut on the Nasdaq. “I started buying Bitcoin at $5 for eToro’s treasury… and eventually, $5 became $50,000. That turned into $50 million before my board told me we had to sell it. It’s not our business.”

Though eToro has now pivoted more toward traditional financial markets—75% of its current revenue comes from stock trading—the company hasn’t abandoned crypto. It still supports over 130 digital assets on its platform, and crypto trading continues to make up about a quarter of its overall business.

Vitalik once worked out of eToro’s offices

Assia also mentioned a lesser-known anecdote from eToro’s early crypto days: Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin once worked from eToro’s office space before launching the Ethereum network. It’s a small detail, but it says a lot about just how early eToro was in the crypto game.

At the time, mainstream financial institutions hadn’t yet touched crypto. For Assia and his team, it was an experiment that turned into a jackpot—but not one that aligned with eToro’s long-term strategy. When asked whether he fired the board members who insisted on selling the Bitcoin stash, Assia smiled and joked, “Maybe.”

Delayed IPO, big comeback

eToro went public on the Nasdaq this week, after years of waiting. The company originally planned to go public via a SPAC merger back in 2021, but scrapped the idea. Instead, Assia said they waited until they had consistent profits on the books.

That patience appears to have paid off. In 2024, eToro reported a net income of $192 million, with $12 million of that coming from crypto. According to regulatory filings, crypto made up about 25% of all trading activity on the platform last year—a 10% jump compared to the year before.

Regulatory run-ins and reality checks

It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. In September last year, eToro paid $1.5 million to settle charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which accused the company of operating illegally as a broker and clearing agency in the crypto space.

eToro didn’t admit to any wrongdoing but agreed to make changes. That included limiting U.S. customers to a few select cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash—and selling off any remaining digital assets not covered by those rules.

Despite these regulatory hurdles, Assia says crypto is still a major part of what they do.

“Nobody doubts that crypto is here to stay,” he said. “It’s a new kind of capital market. Outside the U.S., we’re still offering more than 130 crypto assets.”

From early Bitcoin bets to Nasdaq bell

eToro’s journey—from buying Bitcoin at $5 to ringing the Nasdaq bell—shows just how far both the company and the crypto world have come. What started as a bold, quiet bet on Bitcoin has become a key part of eToro’s story, even as it continues to build out its presence in traditional finance.

Whether or not selling that Bitcoin early was the right call, Assia has no regrets. He’s seen the market evolve firsthand and helped eToro grow into one of the few platforms that truly straddle both the crypto and stock worlds.

“It’s been amazing to witness how far crypto has come,” he said. And judging by how much of eToro’s business still depends on it, that story is far from over.