The Opportunity

With more than $6 billion in customer deposits, EtherFi is one of the largest onchain neobanks and a primary entry point into digital assets for everyday users who want returns, but not the operational complexity of navigating DeFi directly.

Real-world asset yield has emerged as the most durable way to bring sustainable, uncorrelated returns to consumer platforms. The problem has always been distribution. DeFi yields are increasingly compressed and remain siloed to crypto-native audiences, while institutional-grade RWA yield, the kind backed by professionally managed strategies, stayed out of reach for retail users, reserved for sophisticated allocators only.

EtherFi wanted to give its users a stable, diversified source of return without requiring them to leave the app they already trust.

The Solution

EtherFi integrated Plume's Nest Vault infrastructure across two phases.

In Phase 1, EtherFi directed an initial $25M allocation into nBASIS, the Plume Vault powered by Superstate's USCC fund. USCC sources yield from crypto basis trading, staking, and government securities, optimizing returns from basis spreads across Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and XRP. It offers a structurally distinct source of yield compared to directional market exposure, and through nBASIS, that access moves onchain for the first time.

In Phase 2, EtherFi expanded its total commitment to $100 million through RWA Vault, now live directly on EtherFi's main interface.

Throughout both phases, Plume's regulatory architecture, including a Bermuda Monetary Authority licence and SEC Transfer Agent registration, provided the compliance foundation for institutional deployment at scale.

The Results

EtherFi's $100 million commitment, deployed through Plume Nest Vaults and live on EtherFi's main interface, put institutional RWA yield, previously accessible only to sophisticated allocators, directly into an app backed by a $6 billion+ deposit base.

For users, that means institutional-grade returns without leaving the app they already trust, held non-custodially onchain.

This is one of the first times a consumer neobank has made institutional RWA yield a native part of its core product, distributed through open, shared infrastructure rather than fragmented intermediaries.

Access that was once out of reach is now a building block inside the apps people already hold.