eToro Exchange

eToro is one of the largest multi-asset exchanges with over 20 million registered users globally.

The broker came into existence in 2007, co-founded by Ronen Assia and David Ring.

eToro currently allows customers to trade over 3000 trading symbols —from forex (foreign exchange market), stocks, and commodities, to 30+ cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA).

eToro is licensed and fully regulated depending on the respective legal framework of each country where the exchange has its entities.

In Europe, for instance, eToro is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) —the financial regulatory agency of the Republic of Cyprus.

Is Binance Exchange Limited To Expert Traders?

eToro is for both beginners and advanced traders.

It has a powerful yet user-friendly interface that provides a fully-fledged trading experience.

Let’s take a look at some of the exchange’s components, its pros and cons, and its overall performance compared to its competitors.

Pros & Cons Of eToro

Pros:

  • Fully regulated across 100+ countries.
  • Access to more than 3000 trading symbols
  • Copy-trading: users can share their trading strategies and share insights with other users and get paid for it as part of the exchange’s Investor Program
  • Various deposit options, including bank cards, e-wallets, and cryptocurrency wallets.
  • Minimum deposit of $200
  • A demo account is available with $100k

Cons:

  • While all US citizens can open a free account, only 45 US states are allowed to trade stocks, ETFs, and crypto-assets
  • Margin trading unavailable for US citizens
  • High cryptocurrency trading fees
  • High withdrawal and inactivity fees
  • Customer service should be improved

Our Take On eToro

I would recommend eToro for beginner traders and everyone who wants to be part of a large trading community.

Overall, the exchange is easy to use, user-friendly, safe and provides several trading and investment tools to diversify and boost our portfolio.

The social element is a highlighted feature here and distinguishes eToro from its competitors.

However, advanced traders seeking advanced charting and more technical trading tools may want to reconsider using eToro, as it can be quite limited in these aspects.

eToro Fees

Fees at eToro are relatively decent and suitable even if you’re an active trader.

However, there are some perks and pain points we must consider before diving in.

Withdrawal Fees

The minimum withdrawal is $30. Since the exchange operates in USD, all withdrawal requests sent in currencies other than USD are subject to a $5 fee.

Of course, this means US customers don’t have to pay any fees.

Deposit Fees

eToro doesn’t charge any deposit fees —just like most online brokers.

We can choose several options to fund our trading account, including bank transfer —which usually takes 5-7 business days—, electronic wallets, and credit/debit cards.

Non-US customers will have to pay a conversion fee of 50 basis points, or 0.5%, in other words.

Inactivity Fees

A $10 monthly fee is charged if we are inactive for over 12 months. Being inactive doesn’t mean not trading on the platform but rather not logging in.

This could be a pain point for long-term investments, so we should always try to log in from time to time.

Crypto Trading Fees

Trading fees on eToro are relatively low and suitable for all traders.

But cryptocurrency trading is arguably expensive: the exchange applies a 1% fee for the open and the close of our trading positions when trading crypto.

In other words, each time we buy and sell crypto, a fee of $1 is applied. The selling fee is adjusted to reflect the current market price of the respective cryptocurrency.

Stocks & ETFs

Unlike crypto, stocks and ETF (Exchange-traded Fund) trading are commission-free, with no overnight fees applied.

eToro doesn’t charge additional fees when using the exchange’s CopyTrading program.

Nevertheless, it may charge overnight and spread fees depending on each copied position listed on the platform.

Is eToro Safe?

So far, eToro is a highly secure platform with an established profile in 100+ countries across the Asia-Pacific Region (APAC), North America, and Europe.

The broker operates accordingly under the legal framework of each region’s respective regulatory agencies, such as the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom, and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), and CySEC.

eToro has a proven record of keeping investors’ funds secured for over a decade.

The exchange offers multiple safety protocols and tools to reduce the chance of losing funds and keep your account safe.

The broker also provides the two-factor authentication (2FA) option to add another layer of security to your trading account.

eToro Crypto Wallet

Cryptocurrencies are not only volatile —they’re subject to constant cyber-security threats from malicious actors.

To meet safety demands from the expanding crypto market, eToro has developed a highly secured digital wallet, the eToro Money Crypto Wallet.

eToro has a highly secured digital wallet, the eToro Money Crypto Wallet.

With the eToro crypto wallet, the exchange has a set of private keys —a large number equivalent to a password— under your name.

However, if you wish to manage your private keys, you can transfer your funds from the eToro Crypto wallet to your cold storage —a physical wallet to store crypto assets offline.

Has eToro Been Hacked Before?

As aforementioned, eToro has a proven record of keeping users’ funds safe with several security protocols.

There have been no hacking incidents or any kind of security breaches within the platform as of yet, so it’s safe to assume you can trade freely without worrying about losing money.

However, as with any online business, there is always the threat of malicious actors trying to deceive users into handing them their seed phrases or their credentials.

An exchange will never send you an email message asking you for your seed phrases or to send money to a certain crypto address.

Also, be aware of fake websites by checking and comparing URLs with the real ones.

Privacy and Data Collection

When it comes to privacy, eToro collects your personal information when you register on its platform or when you contact the exchange through the chat log, phone, email, or any other feature available to verify your identity.

The broker has strict rules about our personal data. Only legitimate and authorized employees can access it.

Trading Options

eToro offers a wide range of assets to trade with innovative trading tools for its customers.

The exchange also provides social trading —a feature that allows users to connect with other traders on the platform to share insights and copy trading techniques as part of the exchange’s investor program.

If you’re a beginner trader, there’s a section specifically made for educational content with a wide range of topics to start from, such as the difference between trading and investing, what are cryptocurrencies, stocks, commodities, and how to trade on eToro, etc.

Let’s discuss some of the trading options below.

Contracts For Difference

We have CFDs (Contracts for Difference.) CFDs are a type of contract where an investor or trader agrees to pay a broker the difference between the current price of an asset and its later value.

In this type of investment, we don’t own the underlying asset —we invest in it, take the profit, and then pay the difference between the asset’s original value at the time the contract opens and the later value when it closes.

Leverage Trading

eToro offers leverage trading for retail clients and institutional clients. Leverage options are in accordance with the principles defined by the ESMA (European Securities and Markets Authority) and the ASIC.

  • x30: major currency pairs like EUR/USD
  • x20: gold, indices, and other currency pairs
  • x10: stock market indices and commodities (other than gold)
  • x5: CFD securities and ETFs
  • x2: Crypto CFD

While retail clients have limited leverage options compared to professional clients, they benefit from certain investor protections, such as coverage.

Crypto Trading

We can trade 30+ cryptocurrencies on eToro, including the top-market cap currencies from the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector:

  • Bitcoin (BTC)
  • Ethereum (ETH)
  • Litecoin (LTC)
  • Binance Coin (BNB)
  • Uniswap (UNI)
  • Dogecoin (DOGE)
  • Avalanche (AAVE)
  • Cardano (ADA)
  • Dash (DASH)
  • Solana (SOL)

CopyTrader

CopyTrader allows customers to emulate successful trading strategies from other investors.

This is particularly helpful for beginners and traders who don’t have the time to check the market constantly.

eToro doesn’t charge additional fees when using the CopyTrading program.

Nevertheless, it may charge overnight and spread fees depending on each copied position listed on the platform.

Market News & Technical Analysis

Another important feature to highlight about eToro is that it provides up-to-date news and in-depth analysis of the traditional stock market and the cryptocurrency market.

eToroX

The eToroX exchange is the digital assets version of eToro, specifically made for corporate and institutional-grade clients.

It’s a powerful platform that, compared to the original eToro trading platform, offers a lot more technical tools for professional clients.

Banking At eToro

After all KYC checks are completed and we have provided all the necessary information, we have a few options to deposit funds into our eToro trading account —a debit/credit card, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill, or Wire Transfer.

Cryptocurrency deposits are not available, but we can buy all the available crypto assets on the exchange after funding our account via wire transfer or the other options aforementioned.

We then can send our crypto to the eToro Crypto wallet, or the wallet of our preference.

Staking

eToro does support staking, but it’s limited to a few currencies: Cardano (ADA), Tron (TRX), and Ethereum (ETH).

All eToro users are eligible to start staking on the platform and receive their monthly yield.

However, reward percentages depend on the level of the club members:

  • Bronze members and US citizens receive 75% of the monthly staking yield
  • Silver, Gold, and Platinum members receive 85%
  • Diamond and Platinum+ members receive 90%

eToro Site Experience

We can say that eToro is a fairly user-friendly interface and well-organized. Trading is pretty straightforward —we have to click on the “Trade” tab next to the asset we want to trade and start buying, selling, or just have a look at the chart to check its performance.

The minimum investment is $10 and $200 when using CopyTrader.

However, compared to its top-notch competitors, eToro is quite limited when it comes to charting, cryptocurrency pairs, technical analysis tools, and conditional orders.

The homepage is divided into several sections.

Home, where we can share our thoughts about the market with the eToro community, and stay updated by checking the newsfeed for important market movements or announcements.

The Watchlist, where we can check out recent price movements of stocks, commodities, crypto, etc, and the current sentiment (99% buying sentiment, 60% selling sentiment, etc.)

In the Portfolio section, we can check the current state of your investments, our trade history, and pending orders.

Withdrawing funds is also straightforward as we only need to put the amount we wish to withdraw and where to.

The Discover tab is an all-encompassing section where we can explore global markets and browse them by category, trending assets, check the top traders of the eToro platform and copy their strategies, or use Smart Portfolios —a pre-selected collection of several assets from various industries, including tech, commodities, crypto, and more.

Note that the minimum investment in Smart Portfolios is $500.

As you see, the interface is very intuitive and straightforward. Beginners and advanced traders can seamlessly navigate throughout the exchange without getting lost.

eToro App Experience

eToro can be accessed through the official mobile app, which can be found on the exchange’s website.

It’s available for download to both iOS and Android users.

The mobile app performs swiftly and smoothly for both iOS and Android devices.

It offers a well-organized dashboard with the same sections as the desktop version —Home, Watchlist, Portfolio, and Discover.

At the top left, with have the menu icon where we can see the following features: eToro Club, invite friends, Help, Logout, and Deposit Funds —the exact same as the desktop version.

Naturally, navigating the exchange via a mobile web browser results in slower performance, but with the same dashboard and features presented in the mobile version.

Both versions have a search bar to find a particular asset or look for popular investors who offer their trading strategies.

Registration Process

Creating an account on eToro is really straightforward and doesn’t take more than five minutes.

All we needed to do here was to create a username, enter our email account, set our password, and pass the CAPTCHA —a computing test to verify if the user is human and not a bot.

Once created, we went on to verify our account in order to start trading. The KYC (Know Your Customer) process consists of providing the necessary personal information.

As such, we need one or two of the following (depending on the country you’re based) credentials:

  • Passport ID
  • Identity card
  • SSN —Social Security Number— (only applies to US customers)

Afterward, the platform will ask us several questions about our experience with investing in different assets, how much we plan to deposit, how much we expect to make yearly on the platform, and other finance-related topics.

Once done, we will need to take a selfie with our updated passport or ID card.

Once submitted, we need to wait for the exchange to review all the pertinent information and validate our account.

This process could take 1-3 days, as most exchanges do.

eToro Global Restrictions

Here we notice that eToro is not available for everyone.

The exchange, citing regulatory requirements and risk management decisions, doesn’t offer its services to at least 133 countries across Europe, South America, the Middle East, and North America, mainly:

  • Andorra
  • Afghanistan
  • Canada
  • Armenia
  • China
  • Egypt
  • Guatemala
  • New Zealand
  • Turkey
  • Venezuela

The exchange does offer its services to 140 countries, including:

  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Argentina
  • Brazil
  • Bulgaria
  • Chile
  • Colombia
  • Denmark
  • Switzerland

We noted that the exchange is only available for 45 US states (a list subject to future changes.)

The unavailable US states are American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, Tennessee, Europe, and US Virgin Islands.

eToro Customer Support

eToro falls short when providing customer support.

For regular clients, only email and ticket support are provided.

Chat and phone support are only available for eToro club members, who receive exclusive features and services.