Banking in 2035: The Rise of DeFi Neobanks | Rok Kopp - EtherFi

panel. I know Mickey is a great moderator and I think you all had a lot of fun throughout the panel. Now, we've got Rob and I want to give a really really special shout out to Rob for making Ether because it's one of the cryptocards that I use and I really really love. So, Rob, Rob's like the co-founder and the chief growth officer at Etheri and I'm going to give the stage to him so he can talk all about it and share the Ethery in all its glory with the things he's got. All the best, Rob, and we'll see you on the on the other side.

Thank you, sir. Uh hello everyone. Uh thanks for for joining all 12 of you, but it's gonna be a really good presentation. So, um just a quick note, I'm going to talk a bit today about uh Etherfi. What we're doing at Etheri, we're building a banking alternative.

Uh and so what I mean by that is any banking action you currently take, uh we want to enable that on on chain. So, uh, whether that's spending money in real life, sending money to someone, uh, investing money, uh, we want that all to be able to be done onchain through EtherFi. So, uh, just a a quick high level for those who who do not know, uh, Etherfi, um, you can go to the website, it's ether.fi. We also have an app on the, uh, iPhone and Android.

Uh, it's super easy to start. Uh, couple minutes, you'll get up and going um, and and can start using it. So, uh, we're one of the 10 largest protocols, uh, on Ethereum. Uh, so, uh, market's down. So, I think this number is at like 7 billion now.

But, uh, we have over 7 billion, uh, in assets deposited. And so, uh, EtherFi, you can deposit your ETH, USD, Hype, BTC, uh, pretty much any asset on crypto we're going to have on the platform. Uh, and you can either spend those, uh, earn yield on those or or borrow against them. Uh, so we have four products. We have stake, liquid, cash, and then we're coming out with trade.

Uh stake, think of stake as like T bills. So low risk, you can earn returns on any of your crypto assets. Uh so USD is paying four or four and a half%. Uh ETH is at 3% and then BTC is at like 2%. Uh liquid is what I like to explain is like a managed mutual fund or managed ETF.

Uh so you can put your ETH BTC or USD in in one of these and uh there's managed strategies. So our USD funds currently yielding around 10%. Uh BTC's at like 3 and a half or 4% and then ETH's at 6%. You take a little more risk but you get more returns uh on that. Uh as well um our cash product is a Visa credit card that you can spend on your everyday life.

Uh so you know it's literally just a Visa credit card that you go and you you you kind of tap and spend. I'll uh I'll pull one out here. Hold on one sec. Uh so yeah, so it just looks like a V credit card, normal card. Uh you just tap it and automatically it's going to pull from your safe.

Uh and you can either spend stable coins directly or you can borrow against your crypto. Uh we have a flat borrow rate of 4%. So a lot of people don't want to sell their BTC or sell their ETH. Uh you can hold that, borrow against it and spend in real life, which has been a really really big um uh use case for us. And then trade is uh it's basically going to be hyperlquid.

Uh we're working with their builder codes. So you'll be able to uh trade per spot, etc. Um we're also going to bring on stocks and commodities. So uh buying metals uh or whatever you might want to. So again, the idea is bring on any asset that people have.

So if we do our jobs right, I think our biggest competitors in three to five years are Coinbase, Robin Hood. uh they're just coming at it from like a uh more regulated custodial nature where we're coming at it from a cryptonative uh non-custodial nature. Um our cash product has had really explosive growth. So uh we we're doing about $2.5 million of volume a day in spend uh which is super exciting.

We're just uh we we're about eight months old at this point. Um so it's super new still, but the the use case has been really killer and people have really been enjoying it. Um the I think the biggest thing that we see is people borrowing against their crypto. Uh a lot of people again don't want to sell their Bitcoin, don't want to sell their ETH. Uh we allow you to continue to earn yield um and spend against it in real life.

Uh you can also onboard an off-ramp fiat uh so you could send that to your bank accounts um wherever those may be. I had mentioned this earlier but we have uh both an Apple and and Google app. Uh so again super simple and and userfriendly uh to download the app. Our goal is that everything that you do uh banking currently it can be done on the mobile phone. So uh this is a really big focus of us.

I think one thing crypto has been really really bad at is the user experience. Uh like if you go on and you it's kind of foreign, right? you download a wallet and you connect it and you hit some buttons and like maybe some money goes somewhere. Uh and and so like I think the nerd in us enjoys that, but there's no way we onboard more people into the into the um ecosystem without getting better user experience. And so we're really like focused as a consumer app that's focused on having a really good user experience um in that's uh providing great yield for people um and an an ability to use crypto in real life.

The um the Google app just came out uh about four weeks ago. So we're still adding functionality there, but like the the basic uh functionality is there. The Apple app is out there. You can add it to Apple Pay, tap and pay and go. And it's really super easy.

um anywhere visa is accepted. Um so we have uh three main products that that I was kind of talking about. So one of the important ones that we kind of measure is is TVL which is total value locked. Uh so we're over 3 million ETH in the protocol now. Um like I said I think ETH price is is down bad but uh denominated in ETH.

Our protocol is is at its highest TVL ever. Uh which is great and super exciting. A lot of that has been driven by the liquid products and the cash products. Uh the liquid products again, you can just put your money in there uh and you start to earn uh your yield back while you uh you can just watch it earn yield. So it's it's it's actually really really nice.

Um on the card side, so we have over 70,000 cards that are active. Uh what is defined as an active card is anyone who spent in the last 90 days. Um, of that we have about 22,000 that are active weekly. So that means people who are using it basically as their primary card uh and spending, you know, pretty pretty primarily on it. I think that uh I was just have on a panel and um talking with with Caitlyn Long who build uh a crypto bank basically in the states and uh one of the the she's like I think the question was how how quickly does this happen?

like how quickly will banking be fully on chain and I honestly think it's in the next 3 to 5 years. Uh which is kind of crazy, but there's a um the SEC is very favorable right now. They're really trying to push things through. Um the Fed is getting more favorable I think on these things. So uh and all of the large major institutions, Morgan Stanley, uh Chase, Goldman are all hiring and building out their digital asset uh functionality.

So, I I really think in the next 3 to 5 years, a lot of banking will be on rails. You might still use a Chase or whatever, but I I think that it will be on rails um on crypto rails. Why this is important? Um a it's just really good for for users. Um I think users are really going to thrive the next three to five years because customer acquisition is going to be uh really important for for banks and banking alternatives.

Um on our end, one of the most important things is that users keep custody of their crypto. So if you deposit into Etherfi, we never take custody. You have custody of your crypto uh at all times. It's available 24/7 over collateralized. So uh we can't take your Bitcoin or your ETH and go rehypothecate that somewhere else where uh you know in the US banks currently about 5% of deposits uh are actually held in in the bank.

So, um, something we're really focused on and kind of moving towards. Uh, and then I mentioned on the spend volume. So, uh, this graph is a bit dated, but we're doing about $2.5 million a day in spend. Um, and yeah, so the product has really good product market fit.

We continue to grow, uh, about 2x every every month. Um, and so really excited to to kind of do that. Um, one of the funny things I I think on this is like we feel like the growth is super super good, but if you look at the the amount of people in the world, uh, having 70,000 active cards is super super small. Um, and we're just scratching the surface of of where we can be. Uh, especially since, uh, the market that we have is global, right?

There there's no, um, it's available in over a 100 countries. Our our our card is uh, and the product you can use it anywhere, right? like we we don't um we don't anyone can take their wallet connect to the app and deposit assets. So uh getting the card is KYC and you have to be in an approved country. Uh currently in 100 countries and like we look to grow that number quite a bit.

Um during the uh holiday season we really had really great growth. Um, we were a little worried that that was just going to be seasonal and like just people buying gifts for for their uh their friends, but it's continued to grow and and kind of go up to the right, which is really really positive for us. So, we're doing a really good job of retaining customers right now. Uh, one thing that I I think we focus on that's different than a lot of crypto companies is is how successful the company is and and um where we're creating revenue. uh ultimately revenue going back to token holders um and and figuring out how to make like bring utility to the token.

Um so you know if you go back to Q1 of 25 the majority of our revenue came from staking. Uh in Q4 we've done a really good job to start to diversify that revenue. So uh which is even more important with prices down bad um because that's denominated in US dollars. So, uh, we make money, um, when there's transactions that are on the card. Uh, and then our liquid vaults and our staking will continue to make money, too.

So, uh, we did about $50 million last year in revenue. Uh, we were super profitable. Um, and that goes back to token holders. It goes back to ETHI token holders. So, uh, this year we're looking to double that.

We should be over hund00 million in revenue. Uh, headcount should grow maybe like 10 to 20%, but should be a really efficient, uh, really good business, um, this year. So, one of the things um that we do for that as far as bringing utility to to ETHI holders, there's two real main things. One, you can stake your ETHI uh and earn 10% APY uh on that. So, you basically just get paid more ETHI tokens if you if you stake that.

Um and then we also created a buyback program. So, uh $50 million of the token will be bought back uh by the foundation. Currently, I think we're at like 15.5 um that has been bought back and we're committed to bring back $50 million uh of the tokens. So, um I think you know a lot of crypto companies aren't really clear on where value is going to acrue.

Is it going to be the equity holders or the token holders? For us, it's the token holders uh 100%. That's where all the value will acrue. Um I don't think anyone's cracked the code on on how you make that value acrew there uh best, but we're really working on it and something that we'll continue to focus on in 2026 here. Uh the other thing that's super important is our investors will be fully unlocked as of March.

Uh so I think one of the things that people get scared of is hey is there more token float that's going to come on and uh you know dilute me and and just makes it risky if people just come on and sell. So that that last unlock will be uh in March. There's just one unlock left. Um, so that's really really bullish I think for for the company. So, um, yep.

And this is the staking that I was talking about. About 15% of the the circulating supply is is staked currently. So, uh, that's it. Thank you much. I think I can ask a couple.

Anybody have a No, cut off. No, I'm off. Thank you. If you have any questions, I'll be over here. See you.