Investorsgave eToro Group (NASDAQ: ETOR)a quick double-take yesterday (Tuesday). Pre-market shares climbed roughly 6%to $41.20 on a 35% earnings beat, then reversed once the conference callstarted, dropping more than 6% intraday before settling at $37.61, a 3% lossfor the session. The Q1numbers were a clean beat on the headline figures, with adjusted EPS of $0.91against a $0.69 consensus and net contribution up 19% year-over-year to $258million. Assets under management declined quarter over quarter, while averagetrade sizes shrank by nearly 50% year over year.Singapore Summit: Meet the largestAPAC brokers you know (and those you still don't!)The Q1figures FinanceMagnates.com reported yesterday showed net income up 37% on anear-fourfold surge in commodities trading. CEO Yoni Assia opened the analystcall by calling it the "fourth consecutive strong quarter since becoming apublic listing." Technically, the stock still sits near the local highs it has drawn for about a month,levels last seen in December 2025. But the price action puts the shares morethan 40% below the $67 first-day close eToro registered on its May 2025 Nasdaqdebut, and roughly 28% below the $52 IPO offer price.The eToro’s AUA NumberInvestors Won't HeadlineeToro'searnings deck leads with "AUA grew 15% YoY to $17 billion." Threequarters back, the same chart tells a different story.Source:eToro shareholder update, May 12, 2026.That is$3.8 billion in client assets that have walked off the platform or depreciatedsince the September peak, a sequential erosion of 18% over two quarters. Aprilrebounded to $18.7 billion in the monthly KPI release, but eToro is stilltrading well below the Q3 high. The pressrelease frames the story through the year-over-year lens, which works becauseQ1 2025 was a weak comparable.The drag isconcentrated in one place. Crypto assets held on the platform fell from $7.8billion at the end of Q3 2025 to $4.1 billion at the end of March, a 47%decline in two quarters.Equity AUAhas climbed in the same window, from $6.5 billion to $9.3 billion, but theoffset has not been enough to keep the total rising. Assiaframed the crypto decline as opportunity rather than risk, telling analyststhat "crypto downtimes are the time to build." The framing trackswith eToro's February pivot story, but the underlying asset retentionquestion keeps surfacing.Margin Math the CallSurfacedCFO MeronShani told analysts the company will scale selling and marketing spend from 22%of net contribution in Q1 to 25% by year-end 2026, repeating the commitmentfirst made on the Q4 2025 call in February. At Q1 netcontribution of $258 million, every percentage point added is roughly $2.6million in incremental quarterly marketing. Shani also confirmed adjustedoperating expenses rose 7% sequentially, with a $12 million step-up in customeracquisition costs the main driver.Asked aboutQ2 trends, Shani said the company expects revenue per trade to be "justslightly above the range" of 60 to 75 cents the company normally guidesto, a step down from the elevated Q1 print that commodities trading powered. Net tradingcontribution from crypto was $13 million in Q1, with Shani specifying that thefigure includes a $5 million negative valuation impact on eToro's own corporatecrypto holdings. Strip thatout and the underlying user-driven crypto trading business contributed $18million, less than half the level reported a year ago.Average Trade SizeCollapsedThe Q1invested amount per capital markets trade was $197, down from $304 in Q4 2025and from $262 a year earlier. April held flat at $197 against $379 in April2025, a 48% year-over-year drop. eToroattributes the trend to a higher mix of copy and automated trading, but thefigure is also consistent with retail clients trading leveraged commodity CFDsrather than larger directional cash positions. The balancesheet hints at the same shift. Counterparty balances, which representcollateral posted with trading counterparties on the hedging side of the book,rose 39% in the quarter to $347 million from $249 million at the end ofDecember.For comparison,XTB delivered an 88% revenue jump on 370,000 new clients in a singlequarter, while Plus500lifted its full-year 2026 outlook on $242 million in Q1 revenue. This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.