Etherfi, Scroll’s Top Fee-Generator, Leaves for Optimism

Decentralized neobank and crypto card issuer etherfi is leaving Scroll for Optimism, taking with it millions of dollars in total value locked and monthly fees generated on Scroll, data shows.

In an X post on Wednesday, Feb. 18, etherfi said it plans to move its Cash accounts and card program from Scroll to Optimism’s OP Mainnet, migrating more than 70,000 active cards, roughly 300,000 user accounts, and nearly $160 million in TVL in the coming months.

With etherfi, Scroll’s own TVL is only around $188 million as of today, Feb. 19, per data from DefiLlama.

The decision marks a clear break from Scroll, an Ethereum ZK rollup, where etherfi was the dominant consumer-facing app. According to data from DefiLlama, as of today, EtherFi Cash, the company’s crypto card and digital account product, accounted for roughly $13.2 million in annualized fees, and over $23,000 in the past 24 hours.

For comparison, Aave V3, the second-largest protocol on Scroll by annual fees, boasts only around $564,000 over the past year, meaning EtherFi Cash produced nearly 23 times more in fees.

Since launching its Cash product in September 2024, the company says it has processed more than $265 million in card spend, positioning the service as one of the largest non-custodial crypto card programs currently in operation, the firm noted in its X post announcing the migration.

‘Long-Term Partnership’

Per its post, etherfi is framing the transition as a “long-term partnership,” pointing to deeper liquidity, broader DeFi integrations and native stablecoin support on Optimism.

In commentary for The Defiant, etherfi co-founder Rok Kopp explained that Optimism “has been one of the pioneers of the L2 space and Ethereum scaling solutions more broadly, and the Superchain has powered many of the most widely used blockchain products in the world.”

Kopp added:

“We are excited to build on battle tested, cost efficient infrastructure we know we can scale effectively on. Working with the OP Labs team has been our pleasure, and we believe our collaboration can help propel the DeFi neobanking space to new heights”

Optimism, for its part, also described the migration in a Feb. 18 blog post as a “long-term OP Enterprise partnership” aimed at scaling on-chain payments.

With its leading fee-generating dApp departing, Scroll now faces losing a big chunk of its revenue.

The Defiant reached out to etherfi and Scroll for comments on the move, but hasn’t heard back by press time.