SoFi Bank, N.A. launched SoFi Earn on Thursday 22 October, a tokenized deposit that carries the ticker SOFIE and pays a variable 4.40% annual percentage yield, according to the company’s press release. Each SOFIE represents $1 held on deposit at the bank and is covered by FDIC insurance under the usual rules. The SoFi tokenized deposit is rolling out to SoFi Crypto members from today, and SoFi says the rollout runs through November.
The interest sits in a bank deposit, not in a stablecoin. SoFi’s own stablecoin, SoFiUSD, pays nothing and carries no FDIC cover, and SOFIE converts into it one for one when a member wants to buy crypto or send money out. So a US bank now pays interest on dollars that move on blockchain rails, after a year in which its own industry has asked Congress and the OCC to stop stablecoin holders from earning a return.
“Too much money in the digital asset ecosystem is sitting idle,” chief executive Anthony Noto said in the release. “We believe your money should keep working for you until the moment you need it.” SoFi calls SOFIE the “first and only” tokenized deposit issued by a national bank for consumers. That is the company’s claim; Coindaro could not check it against every bank product on the market.
The launch comes one day after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which supervises SoFi Bank, published its final GENIUS Act rule, which leaves exchange stablecoin rewards to case-by-case review. The release does not say which blockchain SOFIE uses.
What the SoFi tokenized deposit is, and what it is not
Legally, SOFIE is a deposit. The release describes it as a deposit liability of SoFi Bank, N.A., a Member FDIC institution, and says in so many words that it is not a payment stablecoin. It is also a separate product from SoFi Crypto, the brokerage side where members buy bitcoin, ether and other coins. The token is the wrapper. The money underneath is a bank balance, the kind of claim a customer has on a savings account.
The link to the crypto side is a conversion. SOFIE turns into SoFiUSD (ticker SOFID) at a rate of one to one. From there, a member can buy crypto inside the SoFi app or move the funds “over blockchain rails” at any hour, any day of the week, to compatible external wallets. SoFi’s own example is a member putting aside $5,000 for a future crypto purchase: the money sits in SOFIE and earns interest until the day it is converted and spent.
What the release leaves out matters as much. It names no chain for SOFIE. SoFiUSD itself launched on Ethereum in December 2025 and added Solana in May 2026, according to SoFi’s earlier announcements, but that tells us nothing certain about SOFIE. Nor does the release say whether SOFIE can travel on-chain outside SoFi at all, or whether it only lives inside the app and leaves it as SoFiUSD. On the facts published so far, the second reading looks more likely, but it is a reading, not a confirmed fact.
The 4.40% rate, in dollars
The 4.40% APY is quoted “as of 10/20/26”. It is variable and can change at any time, there is no minimum balance, and SoFi warns that fees may reduce earnings. The current figure is published on a tokenized deposit rate sheet, and the terms sit in a separate SoFi Bank Tokenized Deposit Account Agreement. Neither document was available to us in full before publication, so the fee schedule for conversions and transfers is not confirmed.
ETHNews did the arithmetic, not SoFi: $10,000 held for a full year at 4.40% earns about $440 before tax. On the bank’s side, every $500 million of average SOFIE balances would mean roughly $22 million a year in interest expense. SoFi has published no take-up figure.
We have not compared the rate with SoFi’s ordinary savings account, because we did not check that APY today. Readers who already bank with SoFi can do that comparison on their own account screen.
FDIC cover stops at $250,000 and counts your other SoFi money
The insurance is real but standard. The release puts the cover at up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank. Under the FDIC’s general rules the limit also applies per ownership category, which has a consequence that is easy to miss: SOFIE is added to everything else a member holds at SoFi Bank in the same ownership category. Someone with $200,000 in a SoFi savings account and $100,000 in SOFIE, both in their own name, is covered for $250,000 in total, not $300,000.
The cover also ends at the deposit. The release states that other digital assets held through SoFi Crypto are not FDIC-insured, not guaranteed by the bank and may lose value. SoFiUSD pays no interest, and SoFi’s own disclosures say it is not a deposit and is not insured by the FDIC. Converting SOFIE into SoFiUSD therefore swaps an insured, interest-bearing deposit for an uninsured payment token.
| SoFi Earn (SOFIE) | SoFiUSD (SOFID) | USDC rewards on an exchange | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Tokenized deposit at SoFi Bank, N.A. | Payment stablecoin issued by SoFi Bank, N.A. | Stablecoin held on a trading platform |
| Pays interest | Yes, 4.40% APY as of 20 Oct 2026, variable | No | Rewards paid by the platform, not the issuer |
| FDIC insurance | Yes, up to $250,000, aggregated with other SoFi deposits | No | No |
| Conversion | 1:1 into SoFiUSD | 1:1 from SOFIE | Depends on the platform |
| Chain | Not named by SoFi | Ethereum, Solana | Several |
| Access | SoFi Crypto members, rollout through November | SoFi members in the app | In the US, generally Coinbase One for Coinbase rewards (ETHNews) |
Tokenized deposit or stablecoin: the difference in one paragraph
A stablecoin is a token issued against a smart contract holding reserves of two or more tokens, supplied by users, that a decentralized exchange uses to execute trades automatically at a price set by a formula.">pool of reserves, usually cash and short Treasury bills; the holder owns a claim on the issuer, and US law will soon forbid the issuer from paying interest on it. A tokenized deposit is an ordinary bank deposit recorded as a token, so it keeps the features of a deposit, including interest and deposit insurance, and the bank can lend against it. Our beginner’s guide to stablecoins explains how reserves and redemption work.
Why a stablecoin cannot pay this, and why banks still fight rewards
The GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law that takes effect on 18 January 2027, bars a permitted issuer from paying holders “interest or yield” simply for holding a payment stablecoin. It does not say the same about third parties. That is why exchanges such as Coinbase and Kraken can still pay rewards on stablecoin balances, funded by the platform rather than the issuer. The dates and the main obligations are in our explainer on the GENIUS Act’s entry into force.
The OCC’s final rule of 21 October kept the statutory ban but dropped the presumption, floated in its February proposal, that payments from an issuer to affiliates and partners would count as forbidden yield. Each arrangement will be reviewed case by case, and an OCC official declined to say whether the reward programmes already running comply, Bitcoin Magazine reported.
Banks want that door shut. In early January the American Bankers Association’s Community Bankers Council wrote to senators, with more than 200 community bank leaders behind the letter, asking them to stop issuers from paying yield indirectly through exchanges and other partners, Decrypt reported. The letter cited a 2025 Treasury estimate that up to $6.6 trillion of deposits could be at risk, a figure crypto groups dispute. On 1 May the ABA and 52 state bankers associations made the same case to the OCC in a comment letter on its draft rule, the ABA Banking Journal reported. The same coalition had already written to Congress in December 2025.
Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong had answered that first push in a post on X in late December 2025, quoted by Cointelegraph: “We won’t let anyone reopen GENIUS.”
SOFIE sits on the bank side of that fight, and it pays interest anyway. The lobby’s argument is not that dollars on a blockchain should never earn a return; it is that the return should come from a bank, inside the deposit system. SoFi’s product shows what that looks like in practice: the yield is paid by the bank, the bank keeps the deposit, and the stablecoin is left as the non-interest payment leg that the law requires.
The comparison with exchange rewards is not one for one. A Coinbase USDC reward is paid by the exchange, has no deposit insurance behind it and, in the US, generally requires Coinbase One, the exchange’s paid membership, according to ETHNews. SOFIE is insured up to the limit and variable, and there is no stablecoin in the part that earns. Coinbase’s own view of where stablecoin volume comes from is in our reading of its quarterly stablecoin report.
From a 2023 pause to five crypto products in under a year
SoFi’s road here was not straight. The company suspended crypto trading in 2023, a pause that press reports tie to its move to a national bank charter. It brought trading back on 11 November 2025, starting with bitcoin, ether and solana, and credited updated regulatory guidance issued earlier that year, Decrypt reported.
| Date | Step |
|---|---|
| 2023 | SoFi steps back from crypto trading (exact date not public) |
| 11 Nov 2025 | SoFi Bank relaunches crypto trading, starting with BTC, ETH and SOL |
| 18 Dec 2025 | SoFiUSD announced, a fully reserved stablecoin on Ethereum, first for bank and fintech settlement |
| 27 May 2026 | SoFiUSD opens to members in the app, on Ethereum and Solana; tokenized deposits promised “in the coming weeks” |
| 22 Oct 2026 | SoFi Earn (SOFIE) launches at 4.40% APY |
When SoFiUSD launched in December 2025, The Block reported that SoFi aimed it first at settlement between banks and fintechs. On 27 May, when it opened SoFiUSD to members, SoFi listed among the additions planned “in the coming weeks” the ability to convert SoFiUSD into tokenized deposits that earn interest and carry FDIC insurance, according to its release that day. SOFIE delivers that plan nearly five months later. SoFi counts it as its fifth new crypto offering in under a year.
The company also cites Federal Reserve research putting about $64 billion, or 21.2% of the stablecoin market, in wallets that are inactive, forgotten or rarely used. SoFi uses the figure to argue that idle digital dollars should earn something. It is not a pool of money SoFi can capture, as ETHNews pointed out: those balances sit in other people’s wallets, in other stablecoins. SoFi says it has 15.8 million members across all its products, up from the 14.7 million it reported in May. That is a company-wide count, not the number of SoFi Crypto users who can get SOFIE.
What changes for SoFi Crypto members
For a member who keeps dollars inside SoFi Crypto between trades, the change is simple: cash that earned nothing as SoFiUSD can now sit as SOFIE and earn the posted rate, then convert back when it is needed. The trade-off is the reverse of the usual crypto one. SOFIE carries the protections of a bank deposit, but on the facts so far it does not offer the freedom of a token that moves anywhere on-chain.
Access is gradual. The release sets no minimum balance but gives no eligibility conditions and no geographic scope, beyond a rollout to SoFi Crypto members that runs from 22 October through November. Members who want the detail will find it in the rate sheet and the account agreement, including any conversion or transfer fees. This article describes a product; it is not a recommendation to use it.
European readers: MiCA draws the same line
The split between a deposit that pays and a token that does not also exists in Europe. In the European Union, MiCA also forbids issuers of e-money tokens, the euro and dollar stablecoins sold under the regulation, from paying interest to holders. The debate the AMF in France and Consob and the Banca d’Italia in Italy follow is close to the one now running in Washington. On current facts SOFIE is a US product, and nothing in the release suggests it is open to residents of the EU.
What is still unknown about SOFIE
- The chain or chains SOFIE runs on, and whether it can be transferred on-chain outside SoFi or only converted into SoFiUSD.
- The eligibility rules, including whether access is limited to US residents, and the order in which members get it before the end of November.
- The fees, if any, on conversion between SOFIE and SoFiUSD and on transfers to external wallets.
- How the 4.40% compares with SoFi’s other savings rates, and how often the variable rate will move.
- How much money moves into SOFIE; SoFi has given no figure.
The next dates are the end of the rollout in November and 18 January 2027, when the GENIUS Act and the OCC rule take effect. The Treasury, the FDIC and the Federal Reserve still have to finish their own rules, and the question of who may pay stablecoin holders a return will come back in each of them. The comment fight at the Treasury is covered in our report on the GENIUS Act comment period.