What Is ether.fi? Staking Tokens, the Cash Card and How They Work

The company behind ether.fi

ether.fi's Terms of Use (last updated September 9, 2026) are an agreement between the user and Ether.Fi SEZC, a Special Economic Zone Company in the Cayman Islands. The Terms are governed by Cayman Islands law, with disputes sent to American Arbitration Association consumer arbitration — seated in New York for US residents and in the Cayman Islands for everyone else. No street address is published.

The company was founded by Mike Silagadze, who previously co-founded the education technology company Top Hat. ether.fi raised $5.3 million in a round led by North Island Ventures and Chapter One, reported in February 2023 (The Block), and a $23 million Series A led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund in February 2024 (funding release).

Staking: eETH, weETH and what "restaking" means here

Depositing ETH into ether.fi's Stake service mints eETH, a rebasing token whose balance grows as Ethereum staking rewards accrue. weETH is the wrapped, non-rebasing version: your token count stays fixed and each weETH becomes redeemable for more eETH over time, which makes it easier for lending markets and other DeFi apps to handle (staking docs).

ether.fi was originally marketed as a liquid restaking protocol, and some of its help-center pages still describe weETH as a liquid restaking token. Its current product documentation, however, states that eETH and weETH do not include restaking exposure and that restaking is offered through a separate, optional token, weETHs, built with weETH and the Symbiotic ecosystem, with its own reward sources and risks. Readers who want restaking exposure specifically should check which token they hold. OBOL's restaking explainer covers the general mechanism.

Fees on staking rewards. The Terms allocate total staking rewards, including execution-layer rewards, 90% to stakers, 5% to node operators and 5% to the protocol. Any slashing penalties are socialized across all Stake users rather than falling on individual depositors.

Unstaking. You request a withdrawal of eETH (or convert weETH to eETH first), and ETH becomes available once the request is processed. ether.fi says redemption timing depends on available protocol liquidity, Ethereum validator withdrawal queues and network conditions; it does not publish a fixed waiting time. Selling weETH on a DEX is faster but exposes you to the market price, which can sit below the redemption value during stress.

Contract addresses (Ethereum mainnet): eETH `0x35fA164735182de50811E8e2E824cFb9B6118ac2`, weETH `0xCd5fE23C85820F7B72D0926FC9b05b43E359b7ee`, ETHFI `0xFe0c30065B384F05761f15d0CC899D4F9F9Cc0eB` (deployed contracts).

The ether.fi Cash card

The Cash card is a Visa card issued by Third National that draws on assets in your ether.fi account. The Terms describe Cash as non-custodial — ether.fi says it does not hold your assets — and state that ether.fi does not extend credit from its own funds: all spending is backed by the user's crypto.

Two ways the card pays

Source: ether.fi help center, checked October 2026.

Borrow Mode is often why people call it a "crypto credit card," but it works like a collateralized DeFi loan rather than a bank credit line: there is no billing cycle or minimum payment, interest compounds continuously, and a sharp fall in your collateral can trigger liquidation without prior notice. Refunds return to your account balance but do not automatically reduce the loan.

Costs and rewards (as of October 2026)

Cashback above those thresholds drops to 1%, then 0.5%; EUR spending uses lower thresholds and a 0.1% top rate. Cashback is paid in ETHFI, valued when the purchase clears and locked for 7 days, so its dollar value can change before you claim it. ATM withdrawals, P2P transfers, gambling, crypto purchases, rent and several other categories earn nothing (cashback rules; FX fees; memberships). Higher tiers can also be reached by holding Liquid deposits or staking ETHFI instead of paying the annual price.

In 14 countries, including Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Philippines, Core members pay $10 for their first virtual card. FX rates are set at settlement, which can be one to two days after the purchase.

ether.fi also advertises account balance protection of up to $500,000 for eligible accounts, but its own site marks the program as not yet live, and it describes it as insurance-backed rather than deposit insurance.

Liquid vaults, borrowing and trading

Liquid vaults (shown in the app under Earn) are automated strategies that deploy deposits into DeFi protocols; LiquidUSD is the dollar-denominated vault that can also fund card spending. Borrow lets users take loans against their holdings, and Trade offers crypto, tokenized stocks and metals inside the same account. Each layer adds dependencies: a vault's returns and safety rest on the third-party protocols it uses, and borrowing introduces liquidation risk.

Who can use ether.fi

Availability is decided product by product. Per the Terms as of October 2026:

• United States: US residents may use Stake; Cash and Liquid Reserve are available subject to eligibility, with Liquid Reserve unavailable in New York. Liquid vaults are not available to US persons, and Trade may be unavailable in the US and UK.
• Physical card in the US: the help center lists 31 jurisdictions, including California, Florida, New York, Texas and the District of Columbia; states not listed are not covered.
• Elsewhere: the help center lists roughly 90 countries for the physical card, from Argentina to Vanuatu; Belgium and Ireland are eligible but without physical card delivery (country list).
• Excluded: sanctioned and embargoed jurisdictions such as Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

The documents disagree on Canada: the Terms say services are not available to residents or citizens of Canada, while the card help article lists Canada among physical-card countries. Canadian residents should confirm directly with ether.fi before applying.

Card applications require identity and eligibility checks during sign-up.

Security setup and incident history

Controls. Contract upgrades require a 6-of-10 Upgrade Admin multisig (7 external signers) and pass through a 10-day timelock; day-to-day parameter changes go through a 4-of-7 Operating Admin with a 2-day timelock. The Operating Admin and an automated monitoring key can pause contracts, and ether.fi states that no key can move or seize user funds (multisigs and controls). ether.fi lists more than 45 audit reports since February 2023 from firms including Certora, CertiK, Halborn, Nethermind, Zellic and others, and runs a bug bounty on Immunefi.

April 18, 2026 — Kelp rsETH bridge exploit (third party). Attackers forged a cross-chain message to KelpDAO's rsETH bridge, which relied on a single verifier, and minted roughly $292 million in unbacked rsETH. ether.fi says none of its systems were compromised and weETH stayed fully backed, but it paused all Liquid vaults for about a day as a precaution, later required 4-of-4 verifier approval for weETH bridging and deprecated weETH bridging on Scroll, Swell, Bera, zkSync, Mode, Blast, Morph and Sonic from the end of June 2026 (incident report).

September 11, 2026 — legacy AtomicQueue exploit. A missing authorization check in an old Veda withdrawal contract, no longer used by Liquid vaults, let an attacker pull Liquid tokens from certain smart wallets that still had approvals to it. ether.fi reports about $40,000 in user losses on Ethereum plus about 2,257 sETHFI on Arbitrum, and says all affected users are being reimbursed in full; ether.fi Cash accounts were not exposed (incident report). The practical lesson applies beyond ether.fi: revoke token approvals to contracts you no longer use.

If you bridge weETH, OBOL's guide to bridging assets cross-chain explains why bridge configuration matters.

ETHFI token

ETHFI is ether.fi's governance token. Holders can stake it as sETHFI, which also counts toward membership tiers, and card cashback is paid in ETHFI. Token price movements affect the real value of cashback and of tier qualification; ETHFI is not equity in Ether.Fi SEZC.

For OBOL's independent assessments, see OBOL's ether.fi liquid restaking review and OBOL's ether.fi Cash card review; the liquid restaking and crypto cards hubs compare alternatives.

Getting help

ether.fi's help center at help.ether.fi covers the card, memberships, staking and vaults. Support is available through the chat window on the site or by email at [email protected]. ether.fi asks that security vulnerabilities be reported privately rather than posted publicly.

Official channels

Fake ether.fi sites and "support" accounts are common; start from these:

• Website and app: https://www.ether.fi/
• X: https://x.com/ether_fi
• Discord: https://discord.com/invite/etherfi
• GitHub: https://github.com/etherfi-protocol
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/etherfi
• Medium: https://etherfi.medium.com/
• Bug bounty: https://immunefi.com/bug-bounty/etherfi/information/