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A bank, but challenge it.
Ether.fi launches the first bank of Defi, a decentralized and non -guardian alternative to traditional banks.
Basically, the project is developing in a new category, “which is not a traditional bank, in the sense that it does not take user deposits, but it is really a viable alternative to banks,” said CEO Mike Silagadze.
“Our plan from the start was to build this larger platform which has really become a banking alternative for users,” noted Silagadze. “I think that the next year … You (you) see in fact … A half-dozen companies are launching something that starts a lot to look like this, where it is essentially like a revolt or a Neobank … but built on Crypto Rails.”
As anyone who uses Defi regularly knows: “There is this … horrible dance that you have to cross, fundamentally, where you put things on, you do things there, I hope you are in rewards or yields.” Then Silagadze continued: “You have to get the money out of chain”, so you go to an exchange and sell your crypto for Fiat, and the Fiat must go somewhere … and yes, you have the idea. It is not an easy process.
Ether.fi’s objective is to take on the cryptographic natives who already use its other products, then work to embark less native people who use centralized exchanges or are perhaps cryptocurrency.
In the past year, the project has been successful in its product launches and currently offers both Ether.fi Pile and Ether.fi Liquid.
“Even for myself, I probably make 70 to 80% of my finances now on Ether.Fi and … I hope soon, adding some features, I will really be able to move almost 100%, what we want to offer to people. So, that’s a bit … The culmination of this vision that we had from the first days,” Silagadze told me.
But it also develops in the United States, with Silagadze noting that the country is “open to business for cryptographic companies” these days.
“More specifically, the development product opens, then the cash product will be available for most states in the United States. The reason is double. One is obviously the new dry. They dissolved the unit which was going after the crypto and the pursuit of people,” he explained.
And the other reason is that the “license we have obtained allows us to operate in the United States”.
But this new decision is something Silagadze and Ether.fi could not have done six months ago. They were trying to launch new products, but he had thought that the United States was out of the question. Oh, how times have changed.
Currently, Ether.fi has around 200,000 users. That said, Silagadze noted that it was difficult to keep track because people have different portfolios, but they will be able to pin more precise figures because people make accounts for Defi Bank.
“Our internal objective is to reach around 100,000 cards by the end of this year. If we could get there, we would feel pretty good about it,” he said.
I asked Silagadze if the expansion would require additional funding (the company has raised for the last time in February of last year), but Silagadze told me that they had not “touched the money”.
“We have been profitable since almost the first day. So, in 2024, we achieved around $ 22 million in income, and we were profitable this year. It depends on many factors, but we will probably do … 40 (million) to $ 90 million in income, and most likely (being) comfortably profitable, “he said.
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