A year ago, restoration was one of the hottest crypto areas, and projects like Eigenlayer were expressed as the next big thing.
Fast forward to mid-2025 and the total locked amount (TVL) fell throughout the sector and the hype surrounding the point farms withering.
By all, Ether.FI, the head of the market, remained stable, helping users produce produce through liquid staking tokens (LST) that could be stopped in the decentralized financial ecosystem (DEFI).
Today, Ether.FI is looking to expand with plans to be a neobank for crypto companies and users.
Ether.Fi’s dominance
Ether.Fi, based on the Cayman Islands, benefited from being one of the first movers in the liquid resting space, starting a variety -use farm points that saw earlier users receiving points that could eventually be transferred to an airdrop token.
During a 10 -week period at the beginning of 2024, the staked ETH grew from 45,000 ETH to 808,000 ETH. Today, there are 2.58 million staked eth at Ether.fi while the next competitor, Renzo, has about 380,000 ETH.
In terms of dollars, Ether.fi has about $ 5 billion worth of TVL. This number has fallen from the high $ 9.4 billion of December but only due to ETH’s growing price, compared to any significant flow.
Ether.fi is in contact closely with its users in an effort to keep them on the surface.
“We know maybe half of TVL,” Silagadze added. “As in, we know who they are and we are talking to them and there is a continuous conversation.”
Renzo in contrast has seen more than 60% backward ETH from the platform since last July, with TVL slide from 1 million ETH to 378,000 ETH, according to Delete.
From restoring protocol to neobank
For Silvagadze, the restoration product is a way to ride users and capital, while the company’s main ambition is to be a neobank to compete with Revolut’s preferences.
“Staking for us is really just a way of developing TVL and getting a user base,” Silagagago told CoinDesk. “The final goal is to create an integrated product suite that gives users to fully ramp from their traditional banking institutions and work on a native crypto platform.”
Ether.fi Roll a “cash” visa card On the scroll network in September and SilagagagiSze believed this would be the company’s main income driver.
Neobank became quite buzzword in the crypto of the latter. Lending platform Nexus that -rebranded last year as a neobank and also have Launching Dakota’s StealthA crypto app that will provide banking services to crypto depositors. EOS, launched as a higher platform of wise contract in 2017, has also changed focus on Web3 Banking.
For Ether.fi, the plan is to include three products in a closely released mobile app.
The app consists of three integrated products: ether.fi stake, which is the staking protocol; Ether.fi fluid, which is an automatic defi approach manager that forms the best available yield by using AI; and the ether.fi cash wallet and credit card.
Staking firms looking to serve in the US market are removed by a disadvantage of a clear regulatory framework.
But Ether.FI expects the Trump-friendly Trump administration to have a smooth way for it to offer services to U.S. citizens after it ensures their licenses.
“We’re really going to get back to the US for our staking product and the cash product that’s a bit soon. We really get a legal opinion that cools us to do that,” SilvagoSze said. Ether.FI also applies for licenses to operate in the European Union and the Cayman Islands, where its team runs.
The problem with Ethereum’s sentiment
Ethereum is the darling of the 2017 Bull Market and subsequent ICO Boom and the dominant contract chain as Defi and NFTS animated the 2020-22 boom.
This cycle, however, the Ethereum network was criticized for a drawn roadmap because market centers in Memecoins and faster blockchains like Solana.
Ether is currently trading around $ 1,965, which has lost 40% of its value over the past 12-month. Meanwhile, Solana is trading at $ 131 that only lost 25% of its value at the same time.
“Some of the (negative emotions) are clearly engineers of competing ecosystems. People in Solana are outside each day talking to investors and allocators and media and just spreading bulls about ether,” Silagagagi said.
“If you actually separate those arguments, they don’t understand. But those memes are floating around, and they have an effect.”
