ether.fi

ether.fi was founded in 2022 by Mike Silagadze (founder of edtech firm Top Hat) and Rok Kopp, with development starting in December 2022 after the FTX collapse around the thesis that stakers never surrender their withdrawal keys.

Mainnet delegated staking went live on May 3, 2023, and in October it shipped eETH, a liquid restaking token natively restaked into EigenLayer, using a non-custodial validator model that rapidly accumulated scale during the restaking boom.

ether.fi's ETHFI governance token launched on March 18, 2024 via airdrop and Binance Launchpool, debuting near $4.13 with an $8.53 peak; the protocol became the largest LRT issuer as TVL climbed from under $1B to $7–8B.

ether.fi earlier raised about $32.3M from Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures and others; in April 2025 it pivoted to a DeFi neobank, launching a US crypto-collateralized Visa Cash card whose balances reached ~$156M within months.

On August 13, 2026, ether.fi released its Summer upgrade, transforming into a crypto neobank: it added trading in tokenized stocks and metals (xStocks), portfolio-backed borrowing through an Aave market on Optimism, fiat rails covering 30+ currencies, and protocol-level programmatic ETHFI buybacks; the platform reports over 500,000 members, about $2 billion in annual transaction run-rate and roughly $3.5 billion in TVL.

Revenue and buybacks: annualized fee revenue exceeds $219 million and protocol revenue exceeds $50 million; on August 30 the Foundation submitted a proposal to buy back ETHFI weekly via CoW Swap using card, swap and staking revenue, an annualized ~$16 million based on July data; the vote ended on September 3 with participation far below the 1 million token threshold.

Other progress: in June it launched the Liquid RWA vault with Plume (allocating to assets such as BlackRock's CLO ETF); on September 22, 21Shares listed a physically backed ETHFI ETP on Euronext.

ether.fi migrated to OP Mainnet on April 16, 2026. On August 13 it shipped its Summer release, folding tokenized stocks and metals (via xStocks), an integrated Aave lending market on Optimism (borrowing around 4%), and fiat rails for more than 30 currencies into one app, with protocol revenue funding automatic ETHFI buybacks and 3% cash back on its Cash card. The company says it has over 500,000 members and a roughly $2 billion annualized transaction run-rate.

On June 9 it disclosed redeeming 542,792 ETH, 19.6% of TVL, in 33 days without lengthening Ethereum's shared exit queue; on July 14 weETH received the first independent A+ risk rating in liquid restaking. On October 6 it consolidated fiat ramps and virtual bank accounts with MoonPay; on October 7 it announced ether.fi USD with Ethena, aiming to convert over $300 million of platform stablecoin balances into native liquidity; on October 19 SharpLink allocated $200 million each to ether.fi and Lido under Anchorage Digital custody, with the ether.fi side using weETH on Linea to stack EigenLayer yield.

Future strategy and roadmap: ether.fi's revenue mix has shifted from staking fees to spending and borrowing: the Cash card runs at roughly USD 2 billion annual spend with more than 500,000 members, and at a take rate near 1.38% card revenue already exceeds a third of staking income, while the buyback proposal routes a share of card, swap and staking contribution into weekly ETHFI purchases via CoW Swap. The three-year, USD 3 billion deal with ETHGas sells validator capacity into a forward market for blockspace, another route from TVL to cash flow. Stablecoins and RWA matter for the same reason: ether.fi USD keeps more than USD 300 million of balances inside the system, so a self-custodial account can hold payments, collateral and yield at once instead of being only a cash-back card.

Mike Silagadze, founder and CEO, holds a bachelor's in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, founded the education technology company Top Hat in 2009 and led it as CEO until 2021, then served as CEO of Gadze Finance and a venture partner at Ripple Ventures. He founded ether.fi in 2022 and now leads overall strategy and external affairs. Rok Kopp, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer, holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame, was sales director and VP of enterprise sales at Top Hat and CRO at Buildout and Obsidian HR, and co-founded ether.fi with Silagadze in April 2022. Jozef Vogel, COO, is a qualified CPA who previously ran web3 operations at Aave Companies and now oversees finance, legal and internal processes. Seongyun Ko, Chief Protocol Architect, holds a PhD in computer science from POSTECH, worked at Meta and Gadze Finance, and is the principal designer of the protocol research. Rupert Klopper, VP of Engineering, began mining in 2016, led engineering at a crypto investment platform and now heads a remote engineering team.

Recently, ether.fi's Head of Marketing, Slater Heil, has departed. He joined in July 2025 and left in June 2026. During his tenure, he led marketing and growth efforts, driving products like ether.fi Cash and achieving growth from $0 to $1B in transaction volume. His departure may impact the company's marketing strategy.

ether.fi's Corporate Cash credit card charges a 1% FX fee on non-USD transactions and 0% on EUR transactions, with no FX markup on EUR purchases and the same rate applying to all corporate accounts.

In January 2026 Ether.Fi Cash Ltd., the entity behind the ether.fi Cash card, was registered as a virtual asset service provider by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, covering crypto payment cards, trading, asset holding, crypto-backed borrowing and transfers.