Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

On October 23, 2026, ether.fi announced its acquisition of Zeal and opened an in-app route for Zeal users to move to its account and card product. Zeal says the deal covers selected assets, not user accounts, keys or funds, as its wallet winds down.

The move is optional. In its own announcement, Zeal said: “You choose what to move, and nothing moves automatically.” Its follow-up statement describes ether.fi as a self-custodial Visa option for users whose Zeal wallet and Gnosis Pay card services are ending.

Gnosis Pay’s migration guide says Zeal’s card services will be wound up by December 20, 2026. The guide also describes other ways to keep a Gnosis Pay account. Zeal users can choose those routes instead of moving to ether.fi.

What moves to ether.fi
The live migration page sets out four steps. Users start from the Zeal home screen and supply an email address. Entering the emailed six-digit code creates an ether.fi account. Zeal then moves the selected balance and assets into the new account. The final step is identity verification with ether.fi, followed by setting up the card.

Supported assets move across unchanged. Unsupported assets are converted during the move, incurring network fees and potentially losing some value in the conversion. The page invites users to bring their whole balance, but warns that conversion can reduce its value. It supplies neither a conversion quote nor an asset-by-asset migration table.

Opening the account creates a separate legal relationship with ether.fi. The migration page says ether.fi and Zeal remain separate companies. Users of the new account come under ether.fi’s terms and privacy policy. Eligibility, availability, fees, limits and restrictions apply; crypto assets can lose value and returns from earning products are not guaranteed. Identity verification is required before all features become available.

Keeping access to the existing Safe
Before Zeal users lose access to the old interface, Gnosis Pay’s guide tells them to add another wallet they control as a second owner of their Safe. It gives MetaMask and Rabby as examples. It says this lets them sign into the Gnosis Pay web app with that wallet and manage the account, including withdrawals. Without it, transactions still require signatures inside Zeal.

The same guide warns users taking its partner-migration route to withdraw assets from Zeal’s earn product back to their balance first. Assets left in earn will not be picked up. It specifically says Rebind’s migration tool moves assets on Gnosis and Base automatically. Those instructions describe the Gnosis Pay partner route; ether.fi’s migration page does not give equivalent detail about handling existing earn positions.

For EUR cardholders, Gnosis Pay recommends Rebind. Its guide says the account, IBAN and card carry over without new identity checks, with the existing card unchanged at that stage. Users choosing ether.fi’s published flow create a new account and complete verification before setting up the card.

Gnosis Pay describes its partner transition as a staged process. Some partner apps initially import the existing card and Safe setup. Later, when the partner programme goes live, users accept new terms and receive a partner card, with advance notice. Where the partner supports importing the existing card, users keep it for the initial move, with the replacement card coming later in the transition.

Spending balances or borrowing against them
Ether.fi’s Direct Pay documentation lists $USDC, $USDT, $EURC and $frxUSD as spendable stablecoins. It also lists Liquid USD, Liquid RWA, Liquid Reserve and Liquid EUR vault balances. Card payments can draw directly from those vault balances without a prior withdrawal.

The Set Spend Priority control selects which balance pays first. If that balance cannot cover a purchase, the card uses another balance that can. The documentation lists these assets for spending in the destination product. It does not list every asset supported by the Zeal migration.

Users who borrow also take on lending and collateral risk. According to ether.fi’s Borrow guide, eligible assets are supplied to a dedicated onchain lending market managed by ether.fi, earning variable rates determined by supply and demand. Eligible assets act as collateral automatically, and each has its own loan-to-value limit. Both the assets in the portfolio and their total value determine how much a user can borrow.

Loans must remain overcollateralized. Reaching the liquidation threshold shown in the app triggers the automatic liquidation of some collateral to restore the position. Limits on new borrowing cannot prevent market movements from pushing a position toward that threshold. Borrow can be switched off in settings once no borrowed amount remains outstanding, leaving the card operating in Direct Pay.

The terms of use separate protocol lending from the card issuer. They describe overcollateralized credit through decentralized borrowing protocols, with borrowing eligibility and limits set by protocol parameters. The issuer supplies the card used to access that credit; it does not originate the protocol loan.

Cashback has separate conditions
Ether.fi’s Zeal page advertises 3% cashback on eligible purchases up to the applicable monthly limit. The acquisition announcement advertises up to 4%. The migration page does not explain what would qualify a migrating user for the higher advertised rate.

The cashback programme terms exclude ATM withdrawals, peer-to-peer payments, tax payments, currency exchange services, gift cards and other cash equivalents. They also permit reversal of rewards after a refund, cancellation or chargeback, including by debiting the account, reducing future rewards or reducing the refund by the original reward’s dollar value.

The migration page has not published an asset-by-asset conversion schedule or explained how existing Zeal earn positions are treated in its own flow. Gnosis Pay’s stated December 20 deadline covers Zeal card services; ether.fi’s page gives no separate closing date for its migration offer.

Ether.fi has turned a nice-to-have into a must-have. The liquid staking protocol now requires all 12 of its node operators to run mump2p, a networking tool built by startup Optimum.

Until now, using the software was optional for Ether.fi operators. The change came alongside Optimum’s mainnet launch of the protocol on October 20, 2026.

With that move, 16 Ethereum node operators are now running mump2p in production. Together they manage over 1.4 million staked ETH and approximately 22,000 validator keys.

What mump2p actually does
Every Ethereum block has to travel across a global network of computers before validators can vote on it. Today, that job falls largely to GossipSub, Ethereum’s existing propagation protocol. Optimum says mump2p delivers blocks 2.5 to 3.5 times faster than GossipSub. The company also claims lower timing variance and says up to 90% of blocks get accelerated when routed through its system.

Under the hood, mump2p uses Random Linear Network Coding, or RLNC, layered on top of libp2p. libp2p is the networking toolkit that Ethereum clients already use to talk to each other.

RLNC is easier to picture than to pronounce. Rather than shipping a file in rigid sequential pieces, the network sends mixed combinations of data. A receiver can rebuild the original once it collects enough of those combinations, regardless of which ones arrive first.

The software runs as a sidecar gateway. It sits next to an operator’s existing setup rather than replacing it.

Why staking operators care
According to Optimum, faster propagation improves head-vote accuracy. In plain terms, validators are more likely to vote for the correct, most recent block, and that is what earns rewards.

The company also points to better opportunities to capture MEV. That term describes extra value validators can earn depending on which transactions make it into a block and in what order.

Optimum claims its technology has boosted total value by more than $3.7 billion. That figure comes from the company itself and is best read as a marketing headline rather than an independently audited number.

Optimum says deployment requires no hardware changes and no alterations to Ethereum’s consensus rules. Integration typically takes less than two hours of engineering work per operator.

From testnet to mainnet
Optimum is led by MIT professor Muriel Médard. The mump2p rollout followed an extended testing phase that started in mid-2025 and ran until the mainnet launch.

Beyond Ether.fi’s operators, the user list includes established infrastructure names such as Blockdaemon and Stakefish.

What this means for Ethereum staking
When a large liquid staking protocol makes a tool compulsory for its whole operator set, it stops being a performance experiment. It becomes part of the baseline infrastructure.

It also raises a question worth watching: concentration. As more operators route traffic through the same third-party gateway, the network grows more reliant on one company’s software working correctly. The sidecar design means operators keep their existing setup underneath.

The 2.5 to 3.5 times speed figures and the $3.7 billion value claim are both self-reported by Optimum. Independent measurement from operators or researchers would help show how much of the advertised improvement holds up across different network conditions.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

SharpLink (Nasdaq: SBET) has confirmed its first major onchain deployment, $200 million with Ether.fi and $200 million with Lido Finance, with Anchorage Digital serving as custodian for both positions.

The Nasdaq-listed Ethereum treasury firm shared the news via its official X account on October 19, 2026, describing the move as putting its ETH “to work every day.”

The SharpLink ETH deployment marks a shift from passive accumulation to active, yield-generating onchain strategy, a benchmark the company says others in institutional finance can now follow.

From Treasury Build to Active Yield: Inside the $400M Onchain Strategy SharpLink’s treasury thesis has been consistent since the company pivoted to an Ethereum-first model. Accumulate ETH. Make it productive. Compound yields. Increase ETH per share.

The $400 million SharpLink ETH deployment is the clearest execution of that thesis yet.

Anyone can own $ETH. We know how to put it to work.

Over the last year, Sharplink has done roughly $500M worth of deals to put ETH to work across the ecosystem.

These include staking deployments, a dedicated onchain yield fund, and investments for the teams leading Ethereum’s… pic.twitter.com/Ecjuz7n6wn

— Sharplink (@Sharplink) October 19, 2026

The Lido allocation fulfils a plan announced in August 2026. Under that arrangement, SharpLink stakes $200 million and receives wstETH, a liquid token that earns staking rewards while remaining deployable in DeFi, custodied by Anchorage.

CEO Joseph Chalom described the move then as “an exciting expansion in making our ETH even more productive.”

Lido holds roughly $16.5 billion in staked ETH, with wstETH integrated across more than 100 protocols. That scale, and the infrastructure around it, made Lido the natural partner for institutional-grade staking.

The Ether.fi allocation extends a separate line of work involving liquid restaking and weETH instruments.

Both positions sit inside a public-company balance sheet with Big 4 audit oversight, a structure SharpLink has consistently highlighted as the institutional standard.

This latest move builds on a longer capital deployment effort. In early August, SharpLink committed $100 million of its staked ETH to the Galaxy SharpLink Onchain Yield Fund, a $125 million vehicle Galaxy manages to pursue onchain yield strategies and emerging protocol investments.

Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy, said the launch reflects institutional investors moving “from passive ownership toward active participation in blockchain-based markets.”

SharpLink now reports institutional ownership of approximately 60%, up roughly 12 percentage points, with Fidelity, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Vanguard among its holders.

The depth of that institutional base reflects confidence in a treasury model built around productive ETH, not passive holding.

Liquid Staking Leaders and a Widening Institutional Playbook Lido and Ether.fi occupy different but complementary roles in Ethereum’s staking infrastructure.

Lido remains the dominant liquid staking platform by total value locked. Ether.fi leads in liquid restaking, giving depositors exposure to both base staking yield and additional reward layers.

Splitting the $400 million evenly across both protocols gives SharpLink diversified exposure to Ethereum’s productive layer.

Lido has also been expanding its footprint. The protocol launched ETH staking across four Layer-2 networks, Arbitrum, Base, Linea, and Optimism, using Chainlink CCIP, a move that deepens the liquidity reach of wstETH well beyond Ethereum mainnet. SharpLink’s deployment lands as that expansion gains traction.

Meanwhile, efforts to give retail investors direct stETH exposure through regulated products have stalled.

VanEck withdrew its proposed Lido staked Ethereum ETF registration with the SEC, leaving institutional deployments like SharpLink’s as the more accessible path for large allocators today.

SharpLink is not alone among listed companies treating ETH as a productive asset. BitMine has been a consistent buyer and staker, with its ETH accumulation continuing even as BMNR stock faced pressure.

The peer comparison underscores a broader shift: treasury firms are increasingly benchmarked not just on how much ETH they hold, but on how much yield that ETH generates.

On the traditional finance side, banks are also deepening their Ethereum commitments, JPMorgan recently expanded its JPM Coin deposit token to the Ethereum network, a further signal of the institutional drift toward productive on-chain infrastructure.

For SBET equity holders, the metric that matters most now is ETH-per-share compounding. The SharpLink ETH deployment is live. The protocols are running.

The question is how quickly the realized yields, and any further deployment tranches, show up in disclosed performance metrics. Watch for SharpLink’s next quarterly update and any X posts from the company on early yield data.

Ether.fi, the self-custodial crypto neobank reporting more than $6 billion in assets under management, has announced a partnership that will move its entire payments infrastructure onto MoonPay‘s integrated stack. The deal covers fiat onramps and offramps, cross-chain trading, institutional-grade virtual bank accounts and crypto deposits, all without requiring users to surrender control of their private keys. The announcement was made on 6 October 2026. MoonPay, which says it serves more than 35 million customers across 180 countries and holds regulatory licences in multiple jurisdictions including the United States, will supply four products: Headless Ramps, which embed fiat entry and exit flows natively inside the ether.fi app without redirects; MoonPay Trade for cross-chain routing and asset conversion; MoonPay Enterprise for virtual bank accounts supporting ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, Faster Payments, SEPA and Open Banking rails; and MoonPay Crypto Deposits for inbound transfers from external wallets and centralised exchanges. The four products will roll out progressively to ether.fi’s user base over the coming months.

The structural problem being solved Rok Kopp, co-founder and chief growth officer of ether.fi The core friction the partnership targets is well known in self-custodial product design. Where a traditional neobank can bundle its card, bank account and funding flows through a single compliance check, a self-custodial platform has historically been forced to source those functions from separate vendors. The result is that users face repeated identity verification steps, and the transaction experience breaks at the handoff between the app and an outside provider. Ether.fi and MoonPay say that by consolidating onto one infrastructure layer, a user completes verification once and that credential carries across products, subject to local regulatory requirements.

Rok Kopp, co-founder and chief growth officer of ether.fi, framed the benchmark clearly: “The bar for ether.fi isn’t other crypto products. It’s whatever banking app a user opens every morning. Every integration we make is measured against that standard.”

Spending data and market positioning The release includes transaction data attributed to Paymentscan, an on-chain card-tracking service. According to those figures, ether.fi card users spent $123.7 million across 1.5 million transactions in September 2026, up from $24.1 million in the same month a year earlier, a more than fivefold increase. Since launching in April 2025, cumulative card spend is reported at $918.1 million across 11.6 million transactions. The company says card volume growth has been largely uncorrelated with bitcoin price movements over the same period, citing months in which its volume rose while bitcoin fell by double digits.

The third-party source for that data, Paymentscan, is not a widely cited industry benchmark, so the figures should be treated as company-provided rather than independently verified. Editors may wish to seek corroboration before publishing them as established facts.

Regulatory read-across The regulatory architecture underpinning the partnership is worth noting. Ether.fi’s self-custodial model means it does not hold user funds in the way a licensed deposit-taking institution would, which has historically allowed it to expand across markets without obtaining a banking licence in each jurisdiction. MoonPay’s licensed fiat-rail infrastructure handles the regulated perimeter. That division of labour is commercially efficient but sits under intensifying scrutiny. In the EU, MiCA’s stablecoin and crypto-asset service provider frameworks impose new obligations on entities facilitating fiat-to-crypto flows, and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is advancing its own cryptoasset registration and market regime. How the compliance boundary between Ether.fi and MoonPay is drawn will matter as those frameworks come into force.

The broader embedded-finance and digital-asset payments segment is crowded, with several infrastructure providers competing for neobank integration contracts. MoonPay’s differentiation here rests on the breadth of its licensed coverage and the unified KYC layer, which removes the multi-verification problem that has blunted rival self-custodial products. Whether the single-verification promise holds in practice across all supported jurisdictions will be the commercial test.

AI level 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, structure or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the levels mean

Table of contents

Ether.fi is moving its core payments infrastructure onto MoonPay’s integrated stack, the two companies said on October 6, as the crypto neobank works to make a self-custodial wallet feel as simple as a mainstream banking app. The move folds on-ramps and off-ramps, cross-chain trading, virtual accounts, and crypto deposits into a single experience, according to the joint announcement.

Ether.fi, which reports more than $6 billion in assets under management across its Cash, Stake, and Liquid products, will replace payments functions it previously sourced from separate vendors. The shift builds on the neobank upgrade ether.fi rolled out earlier this year. Users complete identity verification once, and that check carries across the card, account, and on-ramp instead of restarting for each product.

Four MoonPay Products Inside the App MoonPay Headless Ramps embed on- and off-ramp flows directly in the app, so users can fund an account in one tap without redirects to a third party. MoonPay Trade handles cross-chain routing for in-app conversions. MoonPay Enterprise assigns each user a virtual account with account and routing numbers, supporting ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, Faster Payments, SEPA, and Open Banking so paychecks and transfers can settle in seconds. MoonPay Crypto Deposits lets users move assets in from external wallets or exchanges, with the token swapped into their balance. The four products extend MoonPay’s broader expansion into payments across blockchains such as Solana.

Card Spending Grows Faster Than the Market The integration lands as ether.fi’s spending product grows without tracking crypto prices. The company cited Paymentscan data showing its card users spent $123.7 million in September 2026 across 1.5 million transactions and 48,162 active addresses, up from $24.1 million a year earlier. Since the card’s April 2025 launch, it has processed $918.1 million across 11.6 million transactions, the release said. Ether.fi attributed the growth to everyday spending rather than trading, which it argues insulates volume from market swings.

Self-Custody at the Core Unlike a traditional neobank, ether.fi does not take custody of user funds: keys stay with the user, and the company says it cannot move or seize wallet assets. Combined with MoonPay’s licensed fiat rails, that design is the basis for the firms’ claim that they can reach more markets without bank licensing in each one. The four MoonPay products will roll out across ether.fi over the coming months, with no immediate date given for full availability.

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Mysterious crypto writer with expertise in blockchain, offering deep insights that captivate and intrigue readers. With a unique ability to uncover hidden insights and trends, Samuel delivers in-depth analysis and thought-provoking content that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. His writing style is engaging and informative, blending technical knowledge with a sense of intrigue, making complex crypto topics accessible to both newcomers and seasoned industry professionals. Samuel’s work continues to capture the attention of the crypto community, solidifying his reputation as a trusted voice in the space.

The partnership puts headless ramps, cross-chain trading, institutional-grade virtual accounts, and crypto deposits inside ether.fi, without giving up self-custody.

, /PRNewswire/ -- Ether.fi, the crypto neobank built around a single account for saving, growing, and spending digital assets, has announced a partnership with MoonPay, the global financial technology company powering the movement of value across fiat and digital assets. Ether.fi is moving its core payments infrastructure onto MoonPay's integrated stack, which covers how users fund the app, move money inside it, and cash out.

Most neobanks source these functions from separate vendors. Each integration adds overhead and compliance surface area, and each usually brings its own identity check. A user ends up verifying for the card, again for a bank account, and again for an onramp, and gets handed to an outside provider in the middle of a transaction. In a self-custodial product this has been harder to fix than in a traditional app, which is a large part of why no one has delivered a seamless version over the past five years. Ether.fi and MoonPay are building one, where the user keeps control of their keys and the experience feels as simple as any mainstream neobank app.

"The bar for ether.fi isn't other crypto products," said Rok Kopp, CGO and Co-Founder of ether.fi. "It's whatever banking app a user opens every morning. Every integration we make is measured against that standard."

Ether.fi is growing on spending, not speculation

Ether.fi's card has become one of the largest onchain spending products in crypto. According to Paymentscan, which tracks card activity onchain, ether.fi card users spent $123.7M in September 2026 across 1.5M transactions and 48,162 active addresses. That is up from $24.1M in September 2025, more than 5x in twelve months. Since launching in April 2025, the card has processed $918.1M in spend across 11.6M transactions and 113K addresses.

This growth does not follow the crypto market. Over the past twelve months bitcoin fell roughly 27%, with double-digit drops in November 2025 and January, February, and June 2026. Over the same period ether.fi's monthly card volume rose in 13 of the last 15 months. In the two months it dipped, January and February 2026, the decline was about 2% each time, while bitcoin was down 10% and 15%. In June 2026, when bitcoin fell 20%, ether.fi's volume grew.

The reason is what people use the product for. Companies built around trading are tied to the market because their revenue depends on speculators trading large assets. When prices fall, activity falls with it. Ether.fi users are buying groceries, paying rent, and more. To them, the balance is just cash. Underneath, it is a stablecoin in a self-custodial wallet on blockchain rails, but that is invisible to the user, and it should be.

The experience matches what users expect from mainstream fintech services. The product underneath is different. A user's keys stay with the user, and ether.fi cannot move or seize the assets in their wallet. Funds move over crypto rails, which means they can travel faster and farther than through a chain of correspondent banks. And because the wallet is self-custodial, ether.fi does not have to be licensed as a bank in every market it enters. Traditional neobanks expand one licence at a time. Ether.fi can reach users in many more markets, with MoonPay's licensed infrastructure handling the fiat rails at the edges. Ether.fi goes further than other neobanks on ownership, reach, and speed.

Four MoonPay products that will be live inside the ether.fi experience

MoonPay Headless Ramps embed onramp and offramp flows natively in ether.fi. Users can save a card and fund their account in one tap. There are no web views and no redirects. Ether.fi controls the full UI, and MoonPay handles the payment rails, compliance, and global payment method coverage underneath.

MoonPay Trade handles cross-chain routing and powers crypto conversions inside the app. Users do not need to think about which asset they are moving or which chain it sits on. They get faster settlement, deeper liquidity, and access to more chains in the wallet they already use.

MoonPay Enterprise gives each ether.fi user a virtual account with account and routing numbers. Payment rails include ACH, Fedwire, SWIFT, Faster Payments, SEPA and Open Banking. A user's paycheck, savings, or business revenue lands directly in ether.fi, and money moves out just as easily to any linked bank, on local rails with settlement in seconds. This makes ether.fi a user's primary financial home, not just a place they visit.

MoonPay Crypto Deposits lets users bring money into ether.fi from wherever they hold it, whether that is Bitcoin or Solana. A user taps deposit, picks a token and a network, and either sends to a QR code or address or connects a wallet or centralized exchange. The deposited token is then swapped and delivered into the user's balance. Cashing out works the same way in reverse, with the user choosing the token they want to receive.

One experience, verified once

Because the stack is integrated, the card, the virtual account, the onramp, and the app are designed to work as one experience. A user completes verification once and that information carries across products, subject to local requirements, instead of starting over each time a new product is turned on.

"The platforms that win will be the ones that make money move simply," said Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and Founder of MoonPay. "Ether.fi is exactly the kind of platform our infrastructure was built for and this partnership shows what's possible when a neobank chooses full functionality with no compromises for their users."

Headless Ramps, Trade, Enterprise Virtual Accounts, and Deposit will each roll out across ether.fi over the coming months to its users. To learn more about MoonPay's unified payments platform, visit moonpay.com/business

About ether.fi

Ether.fi is the leading onchain neobank for digital asset management. With $6B+ in AUM across Cash (crypto card), Stake (restaking), and Liquid (liquid restaking derivatives), ether.fi has established category dominance in crypto neobanking—the rare institutional-grade product built for consumer adoption. You can learn more about ether.fi by following us on X (Twitter) or visiting our website

About MoonPay

MoonPay is a global financial technology company that provides infrastructure for moving value across traditional and digital financial systems. Founded in 2019, MoonPay serves more than 35 million customers in 180 countries and more than 1500 enterprise clients across crypto and fintech. Its products support payments, trading, commerce, stablecoin infrastructure and other services that connect conventional payment networks with blockchain-based financial rails. MoonPay maintains regulatory licenses and authorizations in multiple jurisdictions, including the United States. For more information, visit www.moonpay.com.

Media Contacts

MoonPay
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SOURCE MoonPay

Ether.fi wants its own dollar.

The liquid staking protocol will launch a branded stablecoin built on Ethena’s Whitelabel infrastructure, joining a growing list of crypto projects that would rather mint their own digital dollars than rent someone else’s.

How the Ethena whitelabel arrangement works Ethena’s Whitelabel Stablecoin-as-a-Service platform lets a protocol issue and manage a dollar-denominated token under its own name. Ethena handles the heavy machinery behind the scenes.

That machinery covers issuance, backing management, custody, reserves and liquidity integrations. Ether.fi gets the brand and the user relationship, while Ethena runs the plumbing that keeps the token pegged and redeemable.

The arrangement also lets Ether.fi share in the revenue the stablecoin generates.

Ether.fi has not yet confirmed the stablecoin’s name, launch timeline or backing mix. The economic features, including how revenue will be split, have also not been disclosed.

A platform with a track record, sort of Ethena’s Whitelabel platform gained public traction around September 2025. It has already been used to deploy branded stablecoins for other projects.

Jupiter launched jupUSD on Solana through the service. MegaETH rolled out USDm the same way.

Ethena offers two main backing options. The first is USDe, its synthetic dollar, which currently has a supply of approximately $4.9 billion.

That figure is well off USDe’s high-water mark. Supply peaked at around $14.8 billion in 2025.

The second option is USDtb, a stablecoin Ethena describes as GENIUS-compliant. USDtb is backed by traditional assets such as US dollars and draws on strategic partnerships, including ties with BlackRock for liquidity.

Not the first Ether.fi and Ethena collaboration The two protocols have worked together before. In September 2024, they announced a partnership that let users deposit USDe on Ether.fi in exchange for liquid restaking tokens.

That earlier deal was about plugging Ethena’s dollar into Ether.fi’s staking products. This new one goes further by putting Ethena’s infrastructure underneath a dollar that carries Ether.fi’s name.

The move fits a broader shift at Ether.fi. The protocol built its reputation in liquid staking, but it has been expanding into neobank-style products.

What this means for Ether.fi, Ethena and the stablecoin market For Ether.fi, a branded stablecoin is about keeping value inside its own ecosystem. A tailored dollar asset could tie together staking, DeFi activity and its consumer-facing financial services under one roof.

For Ethena, every new whitelabel client expands the reach of its backing assets. If Ether.fi’s stablecoin leans on USDe or USDtb, it creates fresh demand for Ethena’s core products at a time when USDe supply sits far below its 2025 peak.

Synthetic dollars like USDe have their own mechanics and stress points, which differ from those of fully fiat-backed tokens. How Ether.fi chooses to weight USDe versus USDtb will shape the risk profile its users actually take on.

As jupUSD, USDm and now an Ether.fi dollar enter the market, liquidity could end up spread across many similar tokens rather than pooled in a few deep ones.

The key details to watch are the token’s name, its backing composition, its launch date and how revenue gets divided between the two protocols.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Ethena will manage reserves, minting, redemptions and compliance for a platform reporting more than $300 million in existing stablecoin balances.

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Ether.fi Cash (110k+ active cards and $900M spent) adds real-world assets, with Enso handling routing, minting, and cross-chain execution.

The next generation of the Ether.fi app brings tokenized stocks and metals alongside the rest of a user’s onchain portfolio.

And the distribution is already there: according to Blockworks, Ether.fi Cash is projected to reach $1.7B in monthly spend within the next 12 months.

Behind that experience, Enso routes and executes RWA trades across the app.

When a user chooses an asset, Enso determines how to get them there from what they already hold. That can involve a same-chain swap, moving liquidity across chains, minting the underlying RWA, or combining several of those actions into a single execution.

One interface across chains and liquidityTokenized assets are increasingly distributed across different issuers, chains and liquidity venues. Making them available inside an application means connecting all of that infrastructure without passing the complexity on to the user.

Enso abstracts this into a single routing interface for ether.fi.

A user can start with a supported asset or position and access the RWA they want without manually bridging, swapping between intermediate assets or finding the chain where the asset is available.

Depending on the trade, Enso can route through:

Same-chain swapsCrosschain swapsOFT transfersRWA minting and redemptionRFQ liquidityThese actions can also be composed together when reaching the destination requires multiple steps.

For Ether.fi, this means RWA access doesn't depend on building and maintaining separate integrations for every possible execution path. As new assets, chains and liquidity sources become available through Enso, they can become part of the same infrastructure.

Connecting Optimism to Ethereum liquidityThe RWA experience inside ether.fi also illustrates why crosschain execution matters.

Ether.fi operates on Optimism, while RWA minting, redemption and much of the deepest liquidity for these assets live on Ethereum. The RWA tokens themselves are OFTs, allowing them to move between chains.

Enso manages this entire execution path.

A trade initiated on Optimism can access liquidity or minting infrastructure on Ethereum, move the resulting RWA across chains through its OFT implementation, and deliver the asset back to the user on Optimism.

Depending on available liquidity, Enso can also determine when a direct route on Optimism provides better execution.

The user doesn't need to decide which chain to use, where to source liquidity, whether to bridge first or how the RWA needs to move between networks. Those decisions become part of the route itself.

Routing for execution qualityFinding a route is only part of the problem. The route also needs to produce the expected outcome.

Before execution, routes are simulated against the current state of the chain to verify the expected outcome.

This gives Ether.fi an execution system that can evaluate where liquidity is available, how the trade should be constructed and whether the resulting transaction behaves as expected before it reaches the user.

Abstracting the infrastructureThe result is intentionally simple for the user.

They choose the asset they want to access inside Ether.fi. Enso handles the routing, crosschain movement, swaps, OFT transfers, minting, liquidity sourcing, and simulation required underneath.

As more of the financial system moves onchain, applications shouldn't require users to understand the infrastructure connecting it.

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Asset manager 21shares has expanded its range of cryptocurrency investment products by listing physically backed exchange-traded products (ETPs) for Zcash (ZEC) and Ether.fi (ETHFI) on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam. This development enables investors to access these digital assets via traditional brokerage accounts without holding the tokens directly.

Product details and market accessThe new ETPs offer exposure to Zcash and Ether.fi’s governance and utility token, ETHFI. Both products are physically backed, meaning each ETP share is linked to actual holdings of the underlying cryptocurrency. Investors can buy and sell these ETPs on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, two of Europe’s largest stock exchanges.

The ETHFI ETP tracks the performance of Ether.fi, a decentralized finance protocol focused on staking and providing other financial services within the digital asset space. The addition of these products aims to provide diversified access points for institutional and retail investors seeking crypto exposure through regulated channels.

Mini dictionary: Ether.fi, launched in 2023, is a decentralized finance protocol that allows users to stake Ether (ETH) and participate in a variety of DeFi services, using its governance and utility token, ETHFI.

Both offerings are positioned as physically backed alternatives to more synthetic investment options, appealing to those prioritizing transparency in fund holdings.

Fees and competitive landscapeThe annual management fee for both the Zcash and ETHFI ETPs is set at 2.5%. This rate is significantly higher than the fees charged by many Bitcoin and Ether investment products currently available on European exchanges, which often range between 0.2% and 1.5%.

Higher fee structures may reflect the complexity and lower liquidity of these underlying assets, or the operational overhead related to physical custody of less widely traded cryptocurrencies.

ProductUnderlying AssetAnnual FeeExchange21shares Zcash ETPZcash (ZEC)2.5%Euronext Paris, Amsterdam21shares Ether.fi ETPEther.fi (ETHFI)2.5%Euronext Paris, AmsterdamBTC/Ether ETPs (avg.)Bitcoin, Ether0.2%–1.5%Various EuropeanIndustry participants are watching closely to see whether the higher fees will impact investor demand for these specialized products.

Zcash price surge and market attentionZcash’s listing comes at a time when the privacy-focused cryptocurrency has captured significant market attention after a sharp rally over the past year. ZEC’s price recently exceeded $1,500, marking a gain of nearly 1,100%, based on CoinMarketCap data.

The surge has led to renewed discussion about Zcash as a potential alternative to Bitcoin, which remains the largest and most widely adopted digital asset. Some analysts have noted Zcash’s unique privacy features and its potential to attract users seeking more anonymity in blockchain transactions.

Zach Pandl, research head at Grayscale, has stated that Zcash could gain from “second-mover advantages,” which may allow it to overcome Bitcoin’s established network effects, a challenge that other early cryptocurrencies like Litecoin were unable to address successfully.

The recent market momentum has put Zcash back into focus for both investors and industry commentators comparing its prospects to established cryptocurrencies.

Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 is now live on all platforms.

Beating AI News Flash: Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5.5 is now available on all platforms, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

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Fitch Raises 2027 Brent Oil Price Forecast to $70 Per Barrel

Fitch Ratings’ latest report has raised its 2027 Brent crude oil price forecast to $70 per barrel. The agency also increased its natural gas price assumption for the Netherlands’ Title Transfer Facility (TTF) amid disruptions to liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. The report noted that Brent oil prices are projected to decline once the capacity of Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline is restored.

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Apple Inc. has spent several months developing screenless devices, aiming to compete with products from Whoop and Oura.

According to market sources, Apple Inc. has been developing a screenless device for several months. The tech giant is working on a new fitness tracker designed to compete with products from Whoop and Oura. However, Apple has not yet finalized a decision on whether to release the screenless tracker.

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A small-scale study from Viking Therapeutics shows its weight loss injectable helped patients lose weight and maintain results, sending the company’s stock price soaring.

Viking Therapeutics Inc. shares rose sharply after the company announced positive results from a small exploratory study of its dual-target injectable obesity drug, which helped patients achieve weight loss and maintain the effect even when dosing frequency was reduced. The company drew conclusions based on data from the study’s extended patient cohort. The research was originally designed to determine the optimal dose of the drug, which regulates weight through two distinct pathways. The results are a major boost for Viking, which had faced setbacks in prior trials. The company said patients on a moderate weekly dose in the main trial phase saw the best outcomes, shedding up to 19% of their body weight over roughly five months. A 13-patient "exploratory" group continued on a slightly lower dose for an additional three months, achieving 22% weight loss with no plateau observed. Viking noted that when patients switched to a less frequent dosing regimen (once or twice monthly), some were able to maintain 90% to 97% of their weight loss. Side effects were mostly mild and eased over time, with only one patient discontinuing treatment due to adverse events. During low-frequency maintenance dosing, gastrointestinal side effects were comparable to those in the placebo group. Viking’s stock jumped as much as 36.6% during New York trading, marking its largest intraday gain since July 2024, before paring some of those gains.

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U.S. major bank stocks extended their declines, with JPMorgan Chase falling 4.1%.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the declines of major US bank stocks have widened: JPMorgan Chase fell 4.1%, Bank of America dropped 3.1%, Wells Fargo declined 4.2%, Citigroup fell 3.2%, Goldman Sachs dropped 1.9%, and Morgan Stanley declined 3.6%.

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ETHFI price surged more than 13% on Sep. 10, breaking above a months-long range as momentum strengthened across its daily and 4-hour charts.

Summary

ETHFI price rose 13.68% to $0.7032 after reaching an intraday high of $0.7232. The token broke above its $0.6571 upper Bollinger Band, showing strong buying pressure. 4-hour Supertrend support climbed to $0.6075 as Chaikin Money Flow reached 0.32. Analyst Sebi said buyers must hold the breakout and form a higher low for confirmation. ETHFI price breaks above its recent range Ether.fi (ETHFI) price traded near $0.7032 at the time of writing, up 13.68% from an opening price of $0.6186. The token moved between $0.6000 and $0.7232 during the session, with the wide range showing a sharp rise in volatility.

The rally carried ETHFI above the local high near $0.65 established in late August. Price had consolidated mostly between $0.53 and $0.62 after that earlier advance, but the latest daily candle broke through the top of that range.

ETHFI also moved further away from its June low near $0.28. The token has now gained about 150% from that level, although it remains below the prices recorded during late 2025 and early 2026.

The advance continued into the U.S. afternoon on Sep. 10, with the daily chart captured shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern time. ETHFI remained above $0.70, but the open daily candle meant the final closing level had not yet been set.

Market analyst Sebi described the move as ETHFI’s first serious attempt to leave its 2026 base. He said confirmation would depend on the final size of the daily candle and whether buyers can hold the breakout instead of giving back the advance.

ethereum:0xfe0c30065b384f05761f15d0cc899d4f9f9cc0eb

ETHFI is making its first serious attempt to break away from the 2026 base.

Today’s Daily candle has expanded above the latest local range, but it remains open. Confirmation will not come from the size of one candle. Buyers… pic.twitter.com/lyGF7N9Sr8

— Sebi | Markets Analyst (@sebiisb) September 10, 2026 Momentum indicators favor ETHFI buyers The daily Bollinger Bands show ETHFI trading above the upper band at $0.6571. The 20-day middle band stands at $0.5817, while the lower band is near $0.5063.

ETHFI price daily chart — Sep. 10 | Source: crypto.news A move beyond the upper band reflects strong momentum, but it can also mean that price has become extended over the short term. ETHFI could therefore consolidate or retest the breakout area before making another sustained advance.

The daily MACD supports the bullish setup. The MACD line stands at 0.0383, above the signal line at 0.0326, while the positive histogram has increased to 0.0058. The readings show that upward momentum strengthened after weakening at the start of September.

The 4-hour chart provides further confirmation. ETHFI remains above its Supertrend indicator, which has moved up to approximately $0.6075 and continues to signal an active upward trend.

ETHFI price 4-hour chart — Sep. 10 | Source: crypto.news Chaikin Money Flow on the 4-hour timeframe has climbed to 0.32. A reading above zero indicates that buying pressure has exceeded selling pressure during the indicator’s measurement period, while the jump toward 0.32 shows stronger capital inflows during the breakout.

ETHFI support rises toward $0.65 The first level to watch is the daily upper Bollinger Band near $0.6571. A pullback that holds this area would keep ETHFI above the former range and could allow buyers to form the higher low identified by Sebi.

Below $0.6571, the 4-hour Supertrend level at $0.6075 forms the next support. The psychological $0.60 mark sits nearby, making the $0.60–$0.61 region an important short-term test if selling pressure increases.

The daily Bollinger Band midpoint at $0.5817 offers deeper support. A close below that level would place ETHFI back inside its earlier range and weaken the breakout structure. The lower band at $0.5063 would become relevant if the token loses both $0.60 and $0.58.

On the upside, the intraday high at $0.7232 is the immediate resistance. A confirmed break above it could expose $0.75, followed by the $0.80 area last traded around January.

The wider daily chart still shows heavy overhead resistance. Sebi identified $1.72 to $1.95 as the major daily supply zone, although ETHFI would need to more than double from its current price before testing that range.

Ether.fi growth supports the market narrative Sebi linked the technical breakout to Ether.fi’s expansion beyond its original liquid restaking service. According to figures shared by the analyst, the protocol holds approximately $4.87 billion in total value locked, compared with ETHFI’s market capitalization of roughly $677 million.

He also reported that Ether.fi generated $13.66 million in fees and $3.46 million in protocol revenue during the previous 30 days. The platform’s August update recorded more than 500,000 members and an annualized transaction run rate of $2 billion for its non-custodial crypto banking product, according to the analyst.

However, Sebi identified token value capture as a remaining weakness. He said growth in protocol activity does not automatically create demand for ETHFI and placed 30-day holder revenue at zero.

The charts therefore leave ETHFI at a key point. Momentum favors buyers above $0.65, but the token must hold the breakout and establish support above $0.60–$0.61 to reduce the risk of a return to its previous range.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Ether.fi’s CASH card, a Visa-linked product that lets users spend directly from their crypto vaults, has crossed $800 million in cumulative spend as of early September 2026. The kicker: roughly $600 million of that total was racked up this year.

The numbers behind the surge Q1 2026 alone saw $170 million in spend volume, a 35% jump from the previous quarter. By late April, cumulative spending had already cleared $400 million, with monthly volumes regularly topping $50 million even during choppy market conditions.

By early September, the CASH product had processed nearly 10 million transactions. Perhaps more telling than the raw volume is the average transaction size: below $100. That pattern suggests users aren’t making a handful of large purchases to game cashback rewards. They’re buying coffee, paying subscriptions, covering everyday expenses.

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The platform currently supports approximately 70,000 active cards and around 300,000 accounts, numbers that grew meaningfully after Ether.fi migrated the CASH product to Optimism’s OP Mainnet in February 2026.

CASH also offers up to 3% cashback on transactions, credited directly back to user vaults.

A revenue engine, not just a feature In Q1 2026, CASH accounted for 26% of Ether.fi’s total revenue, nearly doubling its share from 14.2% in Q4 2025. That revenue comes from a mix of interchange fees, foreign exchange activity, and lending operations tied to the card’s underlying mechanics.

Why this model is different Crypto debit and credit cards aren’t new. Coinbase, Crypto.com, and others have offered them for years. The difference with Ether.fi’s CASH product is the non-custodial structure. Users aren’t depositing funds with a centralized entity that issues a card. They’re spending from self-custodied vaults, meaning the protocol never takes possession of the underlying assets.

The assets continue generating yield while simultaneously serving as the backing for card transactions. With Ether.fi’s model, users aren’t liquidating positions every time they tap to pay. They’re borrowing against them or drawing from earned yield, keeping their core holdings intact.

What to watch from here The trajectory from $200 million at the end of 2025 to $800 million by September 2026 is a fourfold increase in roughly nine months. The 26% revenue contribution in Q1 suggests this isn’t a loss-leader marketing exercise.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Crypto billionaire Arthur Hayes predicts Ethereum price will reach $10,000 by year-end amid fresh liquidity into the crypto market from Fed balance sheet expansion and Treasury bond buybacks. He also forecasts sharp gains in Ethena (ENA) and Ether.fi (ETHFI).

Ethereum Price Could Reach $10,000 by 2020-End, Arthur Hayes Predicts Arthur Hayes, BitMEX co-founder and Maelstrom CIO, has issued new year-end 2026 outlook in his latest Substack article “Atencion,” predicting Ethereum price to reach $10,000.

The outlook is based on the expectation that EURJPY will fall from around 185 to 140 or lower by mid-2027. Notably, EURJPY dropped to 182.45 today as the US Treasury announced a $12.5 billion debt buyback on Thursday. This comes as part of the US Treasury’s plan to buy back bonds using a $1 trillion cash cushion.

JUST IN 🚨: U.S. Treasury is forecasted to buy back $12.5 Billion of their own debt tomorrow pic.twitter.com/AyJBxYGqEn

— Barchart (@Barchart) September 2, 2026

Arthur Hayes claimed that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to sell Euros and buy Yen, with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) also looking to hike rates. This will massively increase US dollar liquidity.

Ethereum price is rebounding from a 24-hour low of $2,357, currently trading at $2,415. Trading volume has decreased slightly in the last 24 hours.

Ethena (ENA) and ETHFI to Rally Arthur Hayes also predicted a massive rally to $0.50 for Ethena (ENA) and $2 for ETHFI. Hayes has repeatedly called Ethereum his top near-term crypto pick, he had invested many times in ENA and ETHFI.

ENA price is trading around $0.153, with an almost 70% rally in a month. Meanwhile, ETHFI is moving near $0.57, down 4.5% today after a 90% rally in the last 3 months. Arthur Hayes pointed to potential three-times rallies if the forecasts materialize.

Recently, Ethena launched Ethena Pay to enter crypto neobanking built on Avalanche that lets users save, spend, transfer and earn with USDe across 48 countries.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump is discussing declaring the Iran War over. Trump told aides that continued economic pressure will force the Iranian regime either to dismantle its nuclear program or collapse.

Prediction market traders on Polymarket are pricing roughly a one-in-four odds of Ethereum touching $2,000 during September. The upside is currently more favored, with odds showing a 71% chance the price hits $2500 this month.

Arthur Hayes, closely followed for his statements and predictions in the cryptocurrency market, made noteworthy assessments for Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as Ethereum (ENA) and Ether.fi (ETHFI). Hayes argued that a new bull market has begun and stated that Maelstrom is taking maximum risk on all four assets.

Arthur Hayes, who stated that he expects a major rise in cryptocurrencies, argues that Bitcoin is poised for a parabolic increase.

In a recent interview on the Altcoin Daily YouTube channel, Hayes claimed that Bitcoin is likely to soon experience a full parabolic rise, and therefore now is the right time to hold the asset.

Hayes added that Bitcoin would quickly reach “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and that anyone worried about the Fed’s control over bond yields should own Bitcoin now.

Highlighting ENA! Hayes, who stated that he is optimistic about altcoins as well as Bitcoin, noted that base trading, which profits from the price difference between spot and futures markets, is beginning to revive, and said that this is a positive signal for the crypto market.

However, Hayes noted that interest rates are still too low.

Hayes stated that the reactivation of base trading could be particularly positive for Ethereum (ENA) and that ENA still holds significant upside potential.

In his latest blog post, Hayes stated that the Maelstrom fund is also in maximum risk mode and shared the altcoins in their portfolio.

“Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ethena and Ether.fi”

FLOP is an Important Part of a Blog Post! Hayes also dedicates a significant portion of his latest blog post to his new project, Flop Network.

They state that there is no pre-sale for FLOP, the token cannot be purchased, and useful activities on the testnet are required for the airdrop.

“…I repeat: there is no pre-sale. You cannot buy FLOP. Only those who participate in beneficial ways are eligible. Stay tuned for more information about the airdrop…”

Therefore, FLOP should not yet be considered an existing market position like ENA or ETHFI. Hayes positions it more as a new project to be established at the beginning of a new bull market.

*This is not investment advice.

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2 hours ago

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit has announced it will add trading support for four assets: Biconomy (BICO), BubbleMaps (BMT), Nillion (NIL), and Ether.fi Gas (GWEI). All four assets will be listed with BTC and USDT trading pairs. Specifically, BICO, NIL, and GWEI will be deposited via the Ethereum network, while BMT will use the Solana network. Trading is scheduled to open at 13:00 Korea Standard Time on August 21, with deposit services set to activate within two hours of the announcement’s release. Upbit stated that following the new assets’ listing, buy orders will be restricted for roughly five minutes, and only limit orders will be supported for approximately two hours—other order types are temporarily unavailable. If liquidity is insufficient before or after the listing, the trading opening time may be delayed.

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Is Arthur Hayes Crypto’s Jim Cramer? 124 Trades Show a Clear Pattern

Ether.fi [ETHFI] has been on the higher side in the past, delivering an 18% gain, with the asset now on a 90-day streak of roughly 5.3% performance for the first time in a while.

The performance is closely linked to the on-chain market outlook, which shows there has been growing usage of the protocol, especially through fee generation and activity.

On-chain activity supports ETHFI’s growth
The clearest indication of growing usage of the protocol comes from its performance, which shows that users remain active.

The protocol’s fees have surged on a week-on-week basis to their highest level since the week starting June 1. Fees have reached $2.8 million, up from a low of $2.39 million for the week between June 22 and 28.

Higher fee generation points to growing activity on the protocol, with annualized revenue reaching over $50.56 million and revenue over the last 30 days standing at $2.93 million.

Source: DeFiLlama
The total value locked also shows steady growth, indicating that investors continue to deposit and lock their assets on the platform for long-term price performance and yield.

During the week between June 22 and 28, when fees dropped to their recent low, TVL also surged at the time of writing, rising from $2.83 billion to $3.532 billion, an increase of roughly $702 million.

On a short-term scale, the growth remains visible, with the protocol’s TVL growing by $74 million between August 11 and the time of writing.

Liquidation heatmap points to a possible pullback
The liquidation heatmap analysis shows there is potential for the price to witness a local swing based on the cluster level.

The liquidation cluster on the chart shows a dense concentration of liquidity at the higher part of the chart. This local level is around $0.45, with roughly $180,000 worth of orders at this level.

Source: CoinGlass
Clusters tend to act as magnets, pulling price toward them. In this case, with the cluster positioned above the price, it represents a sell cluster. When price trades into this zone, a pullback could occur.

For now, the setup shows a rally-to-retracement narrative. Notably, continued capital inflows, especially through on-chain flows, could strengthen accumulation, outweigh sell pressure at this level, and push ETHFI higher.

ETHFI buybacks remain at zero in Q3
One major concern over whether ETHFI can sustain its run is its buyback activity. Token buybacks allow teams to reduce the circulating supply of their tokens, which can affect price dynamics positively.

For Q3, there has been no token buyback, with $0 spent so far. This stands in sharp contrast to previous quarters, such as Q2 and Q1, when $30,000 and $3.28 million were spent, respectively.

Source: DeFiLlama

Ether.fi’s buyback program is designed to use part of protocol revenue to buy ETHFI.

For now, token holder data shows that buying activity remains in the market, with the number of token holders climbing to 131,940 on the chart. This implies that demand for the token remains present despite the lack of recent buyback spending.

With little incentive from buybacks, the analysis shows that holders in the market are more hinged on the protocol’s performance as a whole.

Final Summary

Rising fees and TVL point to growing activity on Ether.fi, while token holders have also climbed to 131,940.
ETHFI faces potential sell pressure near $0.45, with no buyback spending recorded in Q3 so far.

Ether.fi has upgraded its non-custodial neobank with tokenized stocks and metals, portfolio-backed loans near 4%, payments in over 30 currencies, and programmatic ETHFI buybacks.

Summary

Ether.fi users can trade tokenized assets and hold them inside self-custodial vaults. An Aave market on Optimism supports loans against portfolios at rates currently near 4%. Cash card users receive 3% cashback, while higher membership tiers remove certain foreign-exchange fees. Tokenized stock trading remains unavailable in the United States and some other markets. Ether.fi neobank combines trading, loans, and payments According to Ether.fi’s Thursday announcement, the “Summer” release places crypto trading, tokenized real-world assets, portfolio borrowing, and global payments inside one app designed as an alternative to a traditional bank account.

Through an integration with xStocks, eligible users can buy tokenized equities and commodities alongside their crypto holdings. The assets remain in self-custodial vaults rather than accounts controlled by a centralized exchange, while a social recovery feature gives users a way to restore access if they lose their usual credentials.

Ether.fi said the updated interface uses less crypto-focused language as the project seeks users who may want blockchain-based financial services without navigating several decentralized applications. Instead of moving assets between a wallet, lending protocol, trading platform, and payment provider, customers can access the functions through one app.

Borrowing is handled through a new Aave market running on Optimism. Users can provide assets from their portfolios as collateral and obtain loans at standard decentralized finance rates, which Ether.fi said were around 4% at the time of the announcement.

Borrowed funds can be transferred or spent through the Ether.fi Cash card, allowing customers to access money without first selling the assets held in their portfolios. Users can also spend supported assets directly or continue holding yield-bearing positions as collateral.

“With ether.fi, we’re bridging the gap between decentralized finance and everyday financial needs,” Ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze said.

Silagadze added that the project wants to replace a conventional bank for many users by offering financial tools that have often been limited to institutions and wealthy clients. According to the chief executive, self-custody and decentralized finance make it possible to provide such services without requiring customers to hand over direct control of their assets to the platform.

Card benefits extend across more than 30 currencies Under the upgraded service, Ether.fi Cash cardholders will receive 3% cashback on purchases. The company has also removed top-up charges, while customers at higher membership levels can make payments without the foreign-exchange fees normally charged by the platform.

Ether.fi said the new deposit and withdrawal connections support more than 30 currencies and payment methods. Apple Pay and Cash App are included among the supported options, giving eligible customers additional ways to move between fiat money and assets held through the app.

Card availability still depends on a user’s country. Silagadze told The Block that people in places where Ether.fi cannot issue its payment card can use the platform’s staking products or fiat deposit and withdrawal connections instead.

The app builds on a card business that already serves about 500,000 users and has issued roughly 150,000 cards, according to figures Silagadze gave to the publication. Ether.fi previously moved the card from Scroll to Optimism, placing the payment product on the same Ethereum scaling network that now hosts its Aave lending market.

Alongside the customer-facing services, the Summer release introduces programmatic purchases of ETHFI, Ether.fi’s governance token. The announcement said the buybacks will be integrated into the app’s financial model, although it did not provide the purchase schedule, funding formula, or volume expected under the program.

Tokenized stocks remain restricted for U.S. users American customers will not have access to the tokenized stock trading feature at launch. Ether.fi said the service will also remain unavailable in certain other jurisdictions, while access to cards, fiat connections, and other products will depend on local rules.

The restriction is relevant because xStocks products track shares of publicly traded companies but do not necessarily give holders the same legal position as investors who buy stock through a regulated broker. The exact ownership rights, dividend treatment, collateral structure, and redemption terms depend on how each token is issued.

In July, crypto.news previously reported that tokenized equity ownership across five large platforms had climbed 92% in 30 days to 752,000 holders. Robinhood accounted for 328,000 holders, while xStocks ranked second by asset value at $487 million at the time.

Newer data shows competition in the sector has continued to rise. Binance’s bStocks reached $610.6 million and moved ahead of xStocks less than two months after launching, while Token Terminal data placed the tokenized stock market at approximately $2.7 billion.

U.S. access remains tied to an unresolved regulatory debate. In June, the Securities and Exchange Commission was reportedly considering an exemption that could permit some blockchain platforms to offer tokenized public shares in the country.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce later indicated that any such framework would probably cover digital versions of existing equities that preserve the rights attached to conventional shares. Synthetic products that only follow a company’s stock price without providing shareholder rights were not expected to qualify under the approach she described.

For American investors, Ether.fi’s geographic restriction means the new app does not yet create a direct route to tokenized equities. U.S. users must rely on whichever staking, payment, borrowing, or fiat services Ether.fi is legally able to offer in their location.

Ether.fi expands beyond its restaking roots Once centered mainly on Ethereum restaking, Ether.fi has spent 2026 adding payment products and other sources of on-chain income. The protocol lets users stake ETH and receive liquid assets such as eETH and weETH, which can then be used in decentralized finance without requiring holders to withdraw the underlying stake first.

Earlier in August, Ether.fi began removing its weETH restaking exposure from EigenLayer and moving toward Symbiotic infrastructure. Symbiotic permits a range of ERC-20 assets to serve as collateral and separates functions such as operator management, reward distribution, and penalty conditions into modules that individual services can configure.

Real-world assets have become another part of Ether.fi’s product set. In June, the protocol allocated $100 million to a Plume vault containing income strategies linked to institutional assets.

Plume said the vault included overcollateralized credit pools, highly rated collateralized loan obligations, and bond exchange-traded funds. Ether.fi ecosystem head Charles Mountain said the capital included managed funds from the protocol’s liquid ETH, liquid USD, and liquid BTC vaults, which held about $300 million in combined value at the time.

In a separate three-year agreement, Ether.fi committed $3 billion in ETH as validator liquidity to ETHGas, an Ethereum platform that operates markets linked to future blockspace. The protocol’s latest product update allows users to keep staked and yield-bearing assets as collateral while accessing loans, transfers, or card spending from the same portfolio.

In brief Ether.fi is adding tokenized assets and loans backed by multiple holdings. Fiat accounts will support more than 30 currencies and payment methods. Tokenized stocks and metals will not be available to U.S. users. Ether.fi, a decentralized finance platform known for Ethereum staking, is adding tokenized asset trading, portfolio-backed loans, and fiat accounts to its self-custodial app.

Announced on Thursday, Ether.fi said users can now trade tokenized stocks, metals, and crypto assets through its app. An integrated market using decentralized lending protocol Aave on Optimism, an Ethereum scaling network, also lets users lend assets, borrow against their portfolios without selling their holdings, and send or spend the proceeds. New fiat accounts support deposits and withdrawals worldwide.

Myriad: Ethereum next price move? Click the image to make your prediction.“Initially we're supporting existing assets and select tokenized stocks and gold,” Ether.fi founder and CEO Mike Silagadze told Decrypt. Those existing assets include Ethereum, Bitcoin, Hyperliqud, and ETHFI, Ether.fi's native governance token, said Silagadze. “Quickly we'll start adding additional assets as collateral.”

According to Ether.fi, fiat accounts will be available to users who have completed the identity checks required for its payment card. Deposit and withdrawal speeds will vary.

Ether.fi is also introducing automated buybacks of ETHFI and offering 3% cash back on card purchases. The company says it has more than 500,000 members and a $2 billion annual transaction run rate.

Silagadze said portfolio-backed loans and tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs, could attract people who do not already use decentralized finance.

“I think being able to borrow against the whole portfolio, and being able to loop RWAs is going to be popular,” he said. “Also getting cashback on trades and borrows is going to create some buzz, I think.”

The new features are available to new and existing Ether.fi users, although tokenized stock and metals trading is unavailable in the United States and certain other markets.

Silagadze said the expanded platform is intended to serve as an alternative to traditional banks.

“With ether.fi, we’re bridging the gap between decentralized finance and everyday financial needs,” Silagadze said. “Our goal is to replace the traditional bank for most users and give them tools and benefits that were previously available only to institutions and high-net-worth individuals. That is the power of DeFi and self-custody.”

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Mike Silagadze, CEO and co-founder of liquid restaking protocol ether.fi, has put his money where his governance opinions are. On August 7, 2026, Silagadze publicly offered a $1 million bet that EIP-8363, a draft Ethereum Improvement Proposal for tapered validator reward burning, will increase network concentration among validators if adopted.

What EIP-8363 actually does EIP-8363, titled “Tapered Issuance Burn,” was submitted on August 4, 2026. Its authors include Justin Drake, a prominent researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. The core mechanic is straightforward in concept: partially burn validator rewards at a rate that scales with the total amount of ETH staked across the network.

The burn formula scales as the effective staking balance divided by 60.25 million ETH, raised to the power of 1.5, and capped at 100%. In practical terms, as the amount of staked ETH approaches roughly 50% of the total supply (around 60.25 million ETH), performing validators would reach net zero issuance. Their rewards would be entirely burned.

Currently, about 41.5 million ETH is staked, representing roughly 34% of the total supply, with yields hovering around 2.67%. The proposal’s most aggressive effects would only kick in as staking climbs toward that 60.25 million ETH threshold.

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Why Silagadze thinks it’s a centralization bomb Silagadze’s argument centers on a simple economic asymmetry. Solo stakers and smaller node operators have real capital costs. They buy ETH at market price, lock it up, and earn yield as compensation for that opportunity cost. When yields get compressed by a tapered burn, their incentive to participate erodes quickly.

Large custodians like Coinbase and Binance operate under entirely different economics. They hold massive pools of customer ETH that they can deploy for staking at effectively zero marginal cost of capital. Even with dramatically lower yields, staking remains profitable for them because their cost basis is fundamentally different. The result, in Silagadze’s view, is predictable: solo stakers exit, large custodians stay, and the validator set consolidates around a handful of centralized entities.

Stani Kulechov, CEO of Aave, has also raised concerns about EIP-8363’s downstream effects. Kulechov’s critique focuses on DeFi collateral markets that depend on staking yields. Liquid staking tokens like stETH and eETH serve as collateral across lending protocols. Compress the yield those tokens generate, and you potentially undermine the economic foundation of a significant portion of DeFi.

The community response has been unusually decisive Polling conducted by the Ethereum Validators Association tells a stark story. A survey of validators found 99.77% of respondents opposing EIP-8363.

The proposal remains in draft form with no immediate plans for inclusion in any upcoming hard fork. Supporters of the proposal argue that unchecked staking growth creates its own centralization risks and security vulnerabilities, and that if too much ETH is locked in staking, it could reduce the liquidity available for economic activity on the network. The tapered burn, in this framing, acts as a pressure valve.

What’s at stake beyond the bet Ethereum’s staking ratio has been climbing steadily. At 34% of supply staked, the network is still well below the 50% threshold where EIP-8363’s burn mechanism would reach full force.

For DeFi protocols, liquid staking derivatives are deeply integrated into lending, borrowing, and leverage markets. Any material change to staking economics ripples through the entire composability stack. A protocol like Aave, which holds significant positions in staked ETH derivatives as collateral, has direct financial exposure to these policy decisions.

The $1 million bet remains open. Whether anyone takes the other side may say as much about the proposal’s prospects as the formal governance process itself.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Ether.fi [ETHFI] has stayed on the losing side of the market over the past 24 hours, dwindling further with a double-digit percentage loss.

The token ranks among the year’s most unfavorable assets to trade, stringing together multi-week losses. Over the last 90 days, it dropped 17%, and on a one-year basis, it sits down 65%.

The trend isn’t typical – the recent slide arrives alongside solid on-chain performance tied to capital flow, yet price remains structurally weak.

What’s driving ETHFI lower Derivatives have driven most of the decline through capital and positioning. The Funding Rate plummeted to one of its lowest points in the past day, hitting -0.0101%, a level last seen in April.

A negative Funding Rate normally means short positions dominate the perpetual Open Interest, the leveraged capital sitting in the asset. More than 50% of the $57.33 million in contract value now bets on capturing gains from a falling price.

Source: CoinGlass That target isn’t far off when set against the broader market numbers. CoinGlass liquidation data over the past 24 hours shows short traders lost 22 times less than longs.

Liquidations wiped out roughly $342,009 in long positions against $15,480 in shorts over the same window.

Whales are steering the decline Reading which group drives the move matters for gauging whether the downtrend sustains or reverses quickly.

The whale-retail delta, which tracks the split, puts whales in the driver’s seat. Whales are showing outflows, raising the odds ETHFI declines even longer, since this group tends to commit to a path until something forces a change.

Source: CoinGlass They’ve already dominated retail investors for most of the year, feeding the asset’s underwhelming performance.

Spot netflow points to heavier selling across multiple windows. Over the last 30 days, the netflow hit $2.2 million, and on shorter frames, the 7-day and 3-day readings reached roughly $205,000 and $271,000 at the time of writing.

ETHFI on-chain capital stays strong Capital keeps flowing strongly on the on-chain side of the market. Total value locked (TVL) records the capital deposited and locked in the protocol for long-term holding and gains.

DeFiLlama data reports $261 million worth of the asset flowed into the protocol from 20 July to date, lifting TVL to around $3.484 billion at the time of writing.

A surge like this often hints at long-term commitment, likely from retail and mid-sized investors. For now, whale presence could stand as a key hindrance to the long-term ETHFI rebound retail investors are setting up.

Final Summary Derivatives are steering the move, with a -0.0101% Funding Rate showing traders are positioned for further downside. The TVL climbing to $3.484 billion signals retail and mid-sized investors are still committing capital on-chain.

Ether.fi [ETHFI] has continued with its price recovery. After successfully holding $0.4 support, the altcoin jumped to a local high of $0.44, effectively clearing all recent losses.

At press time, Ether.fi was trading at around $0.43 after rising 11.34% on the daily charts. At the same time, trading volume surged 107%, while market cap climbed 10%, reflecting market participation and capital flows.

What’s behind Ether.fi’s rally? ETHFI’s relative strength was driven by an increased user base and expansion into RWA tokenization. Nearly two weeks ago, Ether.fi allocated $100 million into a new Plume RWA Vault, providing ETHFI users access to institutional-grade RWA yield. 

The product introduced RWA exposure to a simple, non-custodial on-chain vault. After Ether.fi announced the investment. ETHFI surged from $0.37 to $0.44. This was later boosted by the integration with the Binance wallet. A week ago, the Binance wallet added a Plume RWA yield vault on nBASIS. 

In doing so, ETHFI greatly benefited from the expanded market reach. The altcoin rose from $0.38 to $0.44 between July 8 and 12, before retracing. 

ETHFI market demand remains steady In addition to the growing reach of the RWA market, demand for the altcoin has remained steady across the market. 

On the derivatives side, the altcoin’s Open Interest (OI) climbed 19% to $74.47 million as of writing. At the same time, the Derivatives Volume surged 93% to $110 million. 

Source: CoinGlass With OI and volume rising in tandem, it showed increased speculative activity as traders opened new positions, either shorts or longs. The same demand was observed on the spot side. According to Coinglass data, the altcoin’s Spot Netflow has remained positive for two consecutive days. 

Notably, the Spot Netflow was -$82k, a significant drop from -$264k. With the Netflow holding negative, it indicated that buyers are relatively stronger on the spot. 

Source: CoinGlass These prevailing market conditions have historically preceded stronger price performance, especially when sustained.

Can ETHFI’s upside hold? Currently, Ether.fi’s upside momentum remains relatively strong, largely driven by established market demand. At the time of writing, the altcoin Momentum Shift Indicator remained positive and was stabilizing at 0.025.

Source: TradingView With this indicator on an upward trajectory, the prevailing trend is particularly strong. At the same time, the MACD has also remained on a rising trend for the past two weeks, further confirming the trend’s strength.

Taken together, these two indicators point towards the extension of the trend. Therefore, if demand holds, Ether.fi will close above $0.45 and eye $0.5. However, if the altcoin fails to hold $0.44, it will likely drop below $0.4, with $0.37 as the critical support.

Final Summary

Ether.fi surged 11%, successfully held $0.4, and jumped to $0.44 amid strong market demand. ETHFI has shown relative strength, as a $100 million investment into RWA seems to be finally paying off. 

Ether.fi [ETHFI] has posted a sharp decline as capital outflows across the broader market drive much of the fall.

The asset recorded a double-digit loss in the early hours of Tuesday, extending its price to a low of $0.384 on the chart. Outflows continue to dominate, yet the market is already flashing early signs of a possible recovery and leaves room for a rally to still stretch higher.

Capital exits ETHFI’s on-chain economy The steepest hurdle facing ETHFI’s price over the past day has been the on-chain capital exit.

Total value locked (TVL), which gauges the strength of on-chain capital through the deposits and withdrawals moving through the protocol, shows that roughly $54 million has left the market.

The metric slid from $3.212 billion to roughly $3.153 billion, signalling that retail holders are exiting the market, likely on concerns over rising volatility.

Source: DeFiLlama On a protocol level, the asset has held up decently, with earnings—the profit that remains once incentives are stripped out—reaching $1.34 million and already nearing half of the $2.79 million generated in June.

The pattern suggests the recent sell-off reflects a reaction to market sentiment and not a structural bearish trend. That sentiment traces back to the notable decline the crypto market absorbed over the past day, when it shed around $8.61 billion in total capitalization.

Perpetual contracts keep bears in play The clearest gap in the market emerges from ETHFI’s perpetual contracts, which show that bears still hold some strength after an 11% decline dragged open interest to $62.26 million.

That gap stems from an imbalance in liquidations, with market data revealing a wide disparity between long and short liquidations. Over the past 24 hours, long traders have lost roughly 40 times more than short traders.

The liquidation data shows short traders lost just $2,210 against $89,680 for long traders across the same period, and the uneven spread points to the strength of the bears.

Source: CoinGlass On lower timeframes, the liquidation disparity widens further, though the capital lost this time around remains minimal.

The liquidation heatmap offers no clear directional bias for the asset, instead showing fairly evenly distributed clusters.

These clusters mark areas on the chart where buy or sell orders sit, and clusters resting above the price usually act as sell zones that pull the price toward them and force selling, while clusters below reverse the dynamic and force buys once the price drops into them.

For now, there’s no decisive direction, leaving momentum to dictate the next price move.

Rising long volume hints at ETHFI accumulation While liquidations remain skewed in favour of the shorts, activity on the long-to-short ratio points to rising accumulation.

At the time of writing, the long-to-short volume ratio on the chart shows more long volume in the market, pushing up to 1.02. A continued climb would imply that buy interest still lingers in the market.

Source: CoinGlass Whether that offers a sufficient basis for a shift in direction remains unclear. The broader crypto market that shaped the sell-off sentiment has begun cooling, and a strong chance remains that ETHFI benefits from the turn and recovers, flipping momentum against the sellers.

 Final Summary Ether.fi’s token fell 10% after roughly $54 million left the protocol, moving in step with a broader crypto market that shed about $8.61 billion in a day. Buying activity is quietly picking up and a calming market could give ETHFI room to bounce back.