EtherFi offers users simple ways to deposit assets and earn yield through staking, restaking, and liquidity vaults, tapping into protocols such as Pendle and Aave. Its ecosystem goes beyond core DeFi tools, with optional membership plans, crypto-linked credit cards, and a spending app. The protocol’s main features include staking and restaking for major assets, higher yielding auto-compounding liquidity vaults, and governance token vaults, all accessible through a clean interface that also tracks balances and rewards.
Well known DeFi protocol EtherFi is primarily focused on staking and restaking, and has a wide range of integrations across the DeFi landscape. It’s also a leading platform when it comes to improving the user experience, and allows users to spend against their crypto holdings, so in this guide we’ll jump into what EtherFi has to offer, and how to get started using the protocol.
Before we do that though, be aware that all the usual DeFi warnings apply, as potential risks include frontend attacks, smart contract exploits, stablecoin de-pegs, and volatility across the crypto market. This guide is not an endorsement of EtherFi, and investors should look through the protocol’s official documents before using it.
What Is EtherFi?
Focused on staking and restaking, EtherFi allows users to deposit assets in various ways–through staking, and through liquidity vaults–and earn yields on this deposited capital. When using the liquidity vaults, positions are auto-rebalanced, and are deployed across other protocols to maximize earnings, including on platforms such as Pendle, Aave, and Hyperbeat.
EtherFi has a current TVL of just over $7 billion–down from a high of $12.6 billion in August, although that reflects recent price corrections across crypto–and its native governance token, ETHFI, is trading at a market cap of $462 million.
Additionally, EtherFi has TradFi-style membership plans (you don’t have to use these, but they bring additional benefits), and issues a range of personal and business credit cards, both virtual and physical, that can be connected to your EtherFi portfolio and which offer up to 3% cashback rewards. These are alongside a spending app that can be used with Google Pay and Apple Pay, directly connecting DeFi with real world payments.
Not all users will want to take this permissioned route, as it requires identity verification and adds further steps to the user flow, but in that case, you can simply connect a wallet and use Ether.fi as a decentralized, no-KYC crypto platform.
How to Use EtherFi
From the EtherFi website, if you click to open the app, you’ll then be given the option of signing up as a member, with a choice between either a personal or a business account, and if you want to get hold of one of the platform’s credit cards then you’ll need to take this route. If payments and additional benefits are not a priority though, and you just want to get started quickly, then click on Connect a Wallet at the bottom of the entry page, and get started that way.
If you want to join up for membership later, then use the Your Membership tab in the navigation bar to the left of the app, or the Cash tab will take you to the platform’s credit cards.
For the core DeFi options, that you can use regardless of your…
