Omar Arnaout, chief govt of Polish retail dealer XTB, says spot cryptocurrency buying and selling might reshape the corporate’s income construction inside two to a few years, however provided that Poland will get out of the way in which.
Talking in an interview with Polish YouTube channel Comparic, Arnaout was unusually blunt about how lopsided XTB’s revenue at the moment is.
“Round 95%, perhaps much more, of revenues are generated from CFD devices,” he stated, calling the state of affairs a supply of real frustration. His ambition: deliver that determine right down to roughly 70%, with crypto and equities filling the hole.
That is not a small shift. It will imply constructing a wholly new income stream from scratch, one that does not but exist for XTB in any significant type in its residence market.
The impediment is not product improvement or consumer demand, it is regulation. Poland stays one of many few EU member states that hasn’t applied MiCA, the bloc’s digital asset framework, leaving XTB unable to supply spot cryptocurrency buying and selling to Polish purchasers by a home license.
Arnaout did not conceal his emotions about it. He stated the state of affairs “actually hurts,” not simply due to the income alternative being missed, however due to what it means for XTB’s valuation. “I am satisfied we might have a totally totally different valuation on the inventory change if we had larger income diversification,” he stated.
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That is a pointed remark from a CEO whose firm trades on the Warsaw Inventory Change. XTB shares hit an all-time excessive of practically 92 PLN final month regardless of a weaker earnings quarter, pushed largely by document consumer development. However Arnaout is signaling that the inventory may very well be price significantly extra if crypto revenues had been already within the combine.
XTB shares. Supply: Tradingview.com
XTB secured a MiCA license in Cyprus in December 2025, sidestepping the Polish legislative deadlock by routing its spot crypto ambitions by its Cypriot entity. The plan is to check the product there earlier than rolling it out throughout the EU. However it’s a workaround, not an answer, and Arnaout is aware of it.
XTB had beforehand written an open letter to Poland’s president urging him to signal the home crypto invoice, warning that the absence of a neighborhood framework was pushing Polish traders towards offshore platforms exterior nationwide supervision.
Consumer Demand Is Already There, Income Is not
The business case for spot crypto at XTB is not theoretical. Arnaout stated that each time one thing strikes within the crypto market, XTB sees a surge in each new consumer signups and exercise from present customers , despite the fact that the corporate solely affords crypto CFDs, not precise digital property.
“Inflows of recent purchasers and the exercise of present purchasers is just record-breaking,” he stated, describing these moments as virtually at all times hitting new highs.
That is the second supply of ache he described: watching high-intent crypto prospects arrive on the platform whereas being unable to supply them the product they really need. Rivals based mostly in jurisdictions the place MiCA has already been applied can provide spot crypto to Polish purchasers, creating what Arnaout referred to as an uneven taking part in area. “They’ve cryptocurrencies and provide cryptocurrencies to their purchasers, and we can not do that,” he stated.
The CFD-heavy income construction is not only a diversification drawback, it is a volatility drawback. As FinanceMagnates,com reported in April 2025, CFD revenues accounted for over 97% of XTB’s revenue in Q1 2025, with the corporate’s profitability tightly linked to market circumstances. In flat or range-bound markets, that mannequin generates much less. Arnaout acknowledged 2025 was precisely that type of 12 months, roughly flat on most main indices from April by September.
Equities May Additionally Chip Away at CFD Dominance
Arnaout’s 70% goal is not driving solely on crypto. He additionally pointed to equities as a rising contributor, significantly as XTB’s consumer base continues to develop quickly.
The dealer added 864,000 new accounts in 2025, roughly equal to its total pre-2020 historical past of consumer acquisition compressed right into a single 12 months. As reported earlier this month, Arnaout is concentrating on no less than 1.2 million new purchasers in 2026, with ambitions to push towards 1.3 or 1.4 million. The logic is straightforward: a bigger, extra lively consumer base buying and selling shares and ETFs means extra non-CFD income, even with out crypto.
That shift in consumer habits is already seen. Solely 7% of recent XTB purchasers in 2025 selected CFDs as their first transaction, down from 80% in 2019. The brand new cohort is predominantly shopping for ETFs and shares, lower-margin merchandise however ones that construct a stickier, longer-term consumer relationship. Over 80% of recent purchasers in 2025 opened their first place in an ETF, an funding plan constructed on ETFs, or equities.
The income math hasn’t totally caught up with that behavioral shift but. Equities and ETFs do not at the moment generate sufficient per-user revenue to offset what CFDs usher in throughout unstable durations. Spot crypto, with its increased margins and round the clock buying and selling, is the extra apparent lever. Arnaout clearly sees it the identical manner, which is why, for now, regulatory gridlock in Warsaw stays his most urgent enterprise drawback.
