Extended

Extended is a hybrid perpetual crypto exchange engineered by a team with origins at Revolut, combining experience in launching fintech products for large retail user bases and building high-performance trading infrastructure. The company was founded in the summer of 2023 by Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, who previously served as Revolut's Head of Crypto Operations. Active development began in the autumn of 2023, and after an invite-only phase that generated $300M in trading volume, the platform opened to all users in December 2024.

Operating as a decentralized exchange (DEX), Extended offers perpetual contracts on a variety of crypto and traditional finance assets, utilizing USDC as collateral with leverage up to 100x. The platform is built on StarkEx, which facilitates rapid trade execution with minimal fees and eliminates gas fees for individual transactions. A key differentiator for Extended is its long-term vision to create a full-suite trading experience centered around a unified margin system. This system will integrate perpetuals, spot trading, and lending markets, allowing users to use any supported asset, including yield-bearing ones, as collateral. For instance, a user could deposit wstETH as collateral, and if they incur a trading loss, it would function as borrowing USDC, with interest paid to USDC lenders. The goal is to evolve into an EVM-compatible network where this unified margin logic is embedded into the base layer, accessible to all applications on the network.

The business model focuses on providing a self-custody trading environment that mirrors the user experience of centralized exchanges like Binance or Coinbase Pro but without Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. Users retain full control of their funds. Revenue streams are derived from minimal taker fees, while the platform also offers competitive rebates to market makers to ensure deep liquidity. Extended has secured $6.5 million in funding from investors including Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, StarkWare, and Cyber Fund, with angel investments from Revolut executives and Lido co-founder Konstantin Lomashuk. The company is also collaborating with StarkWare, which has allocated an engineering team and a grant to support product development, aiming to build a trustless and transparent equivalent of leading centralized exchanges in the DeFi space.

Keywords: decentralized exchange, perpetual contracts, crypto trading, unified margin, fintech, ex-Revolut, StarkEx, self-custody, DeFi, high-performance trading, crypto derivatives, USDC collateral, leverage trading, spot markets, lending markets, cross-asset collateral, EVM-compatible network, gas-free trading, maker rebates, Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, Tioga Capital, Semantic Ventures, Cherry Ventures, StarkWare, Cyber Fund