Retail brokers and exchanges are aggressively seeking new users by offering simpler or more topical products, though they maintain their economic focus on existing trading lines. The result is a growing disconnect between how companies acquire customers and how they ultimately make money.
Lower-Friction Entry Points
Companies are using new products to lower the barrier for first-time users. Binance is using tokenised stocks as a way to bring people from the crypto world into traditional markets. The exchange reports that 41.5% of bStocks users were entering traditional financial markets for the first time through this route. The same users often trade other instruments, as 58.5% also traded perpetual futures or direct equities alongside the tokens.
Coinbase has adopted a similar approach with its ‘Everything Exchange’ strategy. This system combines crypto with equities and derivatives in one platform. The company uses zero-fee equity trading as a lower-friction entry point into a wider set of products.
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Robinhood’s event contracts provide a clear example of a new entry product becoming material once it sits inside a large retail platform. Revenue from event contracts reached $156 million in the second quarter, according to the company’s Q2 results, rising more than tenfold year on year. Event contracts traded also rose more than tenfold, to 13.6 billion. Total transaction-based revenue reached $776 million. The product generated more revenue than equities, at $129 million, and more than cryptocurrencies, at $100 million, but still generated less than options, at $342 million.
US Funnels and European Data
IG is attempting to create a different version of this funnel in the United States. Its proposed acquisition of Underdog, for up to approximately $1.3 billion, would add prediction markets and a vertically integrated licence stack covering brokerage, exchange and clearing. IG said the transaction would give it a route from sports and event contracts into active trading and financial derivatives through tastytrade. The company expects that the deal would more than double its US revenue and increase its US monthly active customers more than tenfold.
IG’s first-half active customer base increased 66% to 843,600, including acquisitions. The transaction follows tastytrade’s own launch of prediction markets covering commodities, crypto, and economic and financial events. Unlike XTB, where the split is already visible in client behaviour and revenue data, IG’s model remains prospective.
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XTB’s clients start with shares, but CFDs still fund the business. New European clients are starting on XTB through investment products rather than leveraged trading. During the first half of 2026, shares accounted for 38.8% of new EU clients’ first transactions, ETFs for 27.7% and Investment Plans for 16.4%. CFDs represented 17.0%.
The revenue profile ran in the opposite direction. According to XTB’s first-half results, CFDs generated PLN 1.98 billion of the company’s PLN 2.07 billion gross result from financial instruments, or about 96% of the total. Investment products provided most first transactions. CFDs supplied almost all of the trading result. XTB acquired 703,333 new clients during the period.