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 toward building crypto-native neobanking products that combine yield, self-custody and onchain financial services. Silagadze will be speaking 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 staking remains limited within ETFs, Silagadze said other institutional vehicles, like digital asset treasuries (DATs) have moved faster.

“A bunch of them have already started deploying into ether.fi,” he said, calling those early adopters “very much on the bleeding edge.” DATs he added, “certainly had a positive impact on the price” of ether.

Ether was at its lowest point in 2025 at $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 like a rapidly growing trend, just lots of companies going into 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 yield.

Ultimately, Silagadze said he believes Ethereum’s success in 2026 will depend on its ability to deliver practical utility at scale.

“I really believe that the adoption is going to come from a lot of these neobank type 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 Retained TVL as Restaking Lost Its Luster