eToro Founder Buys Bored Ape Yacht Club, Company Exploring NFTs: What Investors Should Know

Another Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) user changed their profile picture to a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Friday. This time it wasn’t an athlete or celebrity making the change but instead the founder and CEO of a social trading and asset brokerage company, signalling the company’s interest in the space.

What Happened: eToro CEO and Founder Yoni Assia changed his profile picture to a Bored Ape on Twitter and shared a thread of why he made the purchase and what’s next.

“I’ve been following the #NFT space, some books/articles even attribute my initial articles of #ColoreCoins as invention of NFTs, it’s a fascinating industry,” Assia tweeted.

Assia purchased Bored Ape #3874 which features the following traits:

• Gray Background: 12% (of all Bored Apes)
• Smoking Jacket: 2%
• Coin Eyes: 5%
• Brown Fur: 14%
• Horns Hat: 3%
• Bored Unshaven Mouth: 16%

The Ape was purchased for 52 Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) on Friday, worth around $209,000 at the time of writing.

Rarity Tools ranks this ape as the #8780 most rare of the 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs.

The OpenSea account called “Toro1” that bought the Ape also owns several Desperate Apewives NFTs and CryptoKitties. 

Related Link: eToro’s Growth Is Explosive, But Wait Until You Hear How Much Bitcoin The CEO Bought For About $10 Per Coin

What’s Next: eToro is set to go public via a SPAC merger with FinTech Acquisition Corp V (NASDAQ:FTCV) in a deal valuating the company at $10.4 billion.

eToro ended the third quarter with 24.8 million registered users, up 8% year-over-year. The company reported 2.1 million funded accounts, up 152% year-over-year. Assets under administration were $10.6 billion for eToro in the third quarter.

Net trading income was $176 million in the third quarter, up 56% year-over-year.

“As we approach the close of 2021, there is a growing number of retail investors around the world actively engaging with capital and crypto markets,” Assia said.

eToro offers trading of a handful of cryptocurrencies on the site. The introduction of NFTs could put eToro in the same company as NFT marketplace OpenSea and Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN), which is working on launching an NFT marketplace and has over 2.5 million people signed up for the waitlist.

NFTs and the metaverse could be big themes for the growth of eToro according to Assia.

“We @eToro are now exploring the #NFT space, and with retrospect of 10 years in the #crypto space, I have to say that there is logic in the #mostentertainingoutcome concept in the metaverse.”