Ether.fi, the non-custodial staking protocol, is pushing further into retail banking with a Summer release that adds tokenized stock trading, portfolio-wide borrowing, and global fiat transfers to its app, the company announced Thursday as part of a shift it has described as building a “defibank” The Defiant: ether.fi’s “defibank” pivot adds tokenized stocks and Aave-backed borrowing. Staking still anchors the balance sheet: ether.fi’s staking arm holds $3.34 billion in total value locked, according to DefiLlama data ether.fi Stake TVL on DefiLlama.
The new borrowing feature lets users take loans against their entire portfolio at rates “currently around 4%,” spendable through the Cash card or used to buy other assets, though the dedicated Aave instance still sits in governance The Defiant: Aave-backed portfolio borrowing at ~4% rates. The protocol already runs a custom, non-pooled borrow market on OP Mainnet with about $25 million in active borrows across more than 16 collateral assets, and DefiLlama shows the broader EtherFi Borrowing Market at $181.05 million in TVL with $24.81 million in active loans EtherFi Borrowing Market on DefiLlama.
Tokenized equities arrive through xStocks, issued by Backed Assets and distributed via Kraken’s Payward entities after Kraken acquired Backed Finance in December 2025, with holdings held in an ether.fi vault protected by social recovery The Defiant: xStocks tokenized equities via Backed Assets and Kraken. Stock and metals trading is not available in the United States and certain other markets, while the rest of the release ships to all users Thursday. The broader convergence of traditional finance and onchain products has drawn other exchanges into tokenized equities: Coinbase adds ACATS, tokenized stocks, and AI advisor in finance push.
New on- and off-ramps add more than 30 currencies and payment methods including Cash App, Apple Pay, and Interac, with named deposit accounts, and the Cash card pays 3% back on purchases with monthly caps ranging from $2,000 to $50,000 depending on tier The Defiant: 30+ fiat currencies, Cash App/Apple Pay/Interac rails, and 3% Cash card rewards. The company describes itself as the first and largest non-custodial crypto neobank, with more than 500,000 members and a $2 billion annual transaction run-rate, though onchain card data annualizes closer to $1.2 billion.
Ether.fi is not alone in adding equities to a crypto app; Coinbase recently extended its own tokenized-stock and ACATS transfer push as traditional finance rails converge with onchain products zBrandco: Coinbase adds ACATS, tokenized stocks, and AI advisor. Coinbase has also pushed for an ADGM license to offer tokenized equities zBrandco: Coinbase ADGM license for tokenized equities. The release also writes programmatic ETHFI buybacks into protocol contracts, funded from every product line, as the token trades at $0.37, down 95.6% from its March 2024 high of $8.53 The Defiant: ETHFI token price and programmatic buyback provision.
