As Ethereum closes out a pivotal institutional year, ether.fi CEO and co-founder Mike Silagadze is already looking ahead to 2026, and he believes the network’s next phase will be defined less by speculation and more by financial products that feel familiar to everyday users, he told CoinDesk in an interview.
Ether.fi is best known for its restaking platform on Ethereum, but has since expanded its focus towards building crypto-native neobanking products that combine dividends, self-custodial and onchain financial services. Silagadze will speak at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference in February 2026
Silagadze described 2025 as a turning point for Ethereum, marked by a wave of institutional onboarding. While efforts remain limited in ETFs, Silagadze said other institutional vehicles, such as digital asset treasuries (DATs), have moved faster.
“A bunch of them are already starting to be implemented in ether.fi,” he said, calling these early adopters “very much on the bleeding edge.” DATs, he added, “definitely had a positive impact on the price” of ether.
Ether was at its 2025 low of $1,472 in April, while during the height of the DAT trend, ether shot up to $4,832.
Looking ahead, Silagadze said his excitement for 2026 centers on the continued maturation of Ethereum’s financial ecosystem.
“The whole crypto neobank movement… seems to be a rapidly growing trend, just lots of companies going into the space and seeing growth there,” he said.
In Silagadze’s view, neobanks represent one of the clearest paths to sustained adoption, especially as stablecoins become more deeply embedded in global finance. These platforms, he argued, are better positioned than ETFs to expose users to onchain activity and dividends.
Ultimately, Silagadze said he believes Ethereum’s success in 2026 will depend on its ability to deliver practical utility at scale.
“I really think the adoption will come from a lot of these neobank players,” he said, arguing that more user activity will naturally follow. That means focusing on “more real-world use cases” from tokenized stocks to accessible banking services and moving beyond what he sees as an overemphasis on gambling-driven applications.
Read more: How Ether.fi’s Mike Silagadze kept TVL when Retaking lost its luster
