By Nancy, PANews
As stablecoin regulation becomes increasingly clear, crypto infrastructure matures, and the yield advantages of DeFi become more pronounced, the narrative surrounding crypto neobanks continues to heat up. Compared to the inefficiencies and high fees of traditional banks, neobanks, with their greater flexibility, lower costs, and more convenient user experience, are attracting users around the world to digital financial services at an accelerated pace. Meanwhile, traditional financial giants like PayPal and Visa are also increasing their investment in the crypto market, fueling increasing competition and attention in this sector.
In this article, PANews lists 12 popular Neobank concept projects. They provide users with a one-stop crypto-finance experience from storage, payment, consumption to investment through stablecoin payments, on-chain income, non-custodial wallets, and compliant financial services, accelerating the integration of TradFi and crypto-finance.
Plasma One
Plasma One is a stablecoin-native financial application powered by Plasma, a Layer 1 blockchain backed by Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.
As a neobank and payment card natively supporting stablecoins, Plasma One is dedicated to solving the pain points faced by users worldwide in storing, paying, earning, and transferring USD, making it easy for anyone, anywhere to use USD without relying on traditional banks. Users can pay directly with their stablecoin balances while enjoying returns exceeding 10%, and earn up to 4% cash back on purchases made with the Plasma One card. Issued in partnership with Signify Holdings and licensed by Visa, the physical card is available in over 150 countries and 150 million merchants worldwide. It also supports zero-fee USDT transfers within the app, enabling instant and free remittances. Furthermore, the account opening process is incredibly simple: registration and verification are completed in minutes, and a virtual payment card is issued. Plasma One is particularly focused on markets with the highest demand for USD, such as Istanbul, Buenos Aires, and Dubai, with localized design tailored to meet the specific needs of users in different regions.
Currently, Plasma One is in early access, and users can apply to join the waitlist.
Galaxy One
GalaxyOne, launched by Galaxy Digital, offers cryptocurrency and stock trading services to US users who meet KYC requirements. The platform allows accredited investors to earn 8% APY through Galaxy Premium Yield, while all investors can earn 4% APY on cash margin and automatically reinvest the interest earned in Bitcoin or other supported cryptocurrencies.
GalaxyOne is now available in the United States via mobile apps (iOS and Android) and a web version. At launch, it includes four core products: Galaxy Premium Yield, for accredited investors with a minimum investment of $25,000; GalaxyOne Cash, which offers FDIC-insured high-yield margin; GalaxyOne Crypto, for trading digital assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana; and GalaxyOne Brokerage, which provides commission-free trading of US stocks and ETFs.
ether.fi Cash
In April, the restaking protocol Ether.fi announced plans to add banking services, making it a new DeFi bank. The platform's application will integrate traditional banking services with crypto functionality, allowing users to use fiat currency for daily financial operations such as bill payments and salary payments.
In fact, as early as September of last year, Ether.fi partnered with Visa to launch its own crypto-native credit card, the ether.fi Cash Card, designed to allow users to easily spend without having to sell their crypto assets. Based on the Layer 2 network Scroll settlement, it offers fast transactions and low fees. It can be used at over 100 million merchants worldwide and supports Apple Pay and Google Pay.
The card's non-custodial design gives users full control over their private keys, ensuring asset security. Users can also earn interest in USDC, ETH, or BTC while spending through ether.fi's Liquid Vaults (supporting protocols such as Aave V3, Fulid, Eclipse, and Swell). The ether.fi Cash card supports borrowing against crypto assets, eliminating the need to convert crypto to fiat, and offers up to 3-5% cashback (until the end of 2025), along with seasonal ETHFI rewards. The card integrates with the ether.fi Club membership system, with different tiers—Core, Luxe, Pinnacle, and VIP—offering diverse benefits, ranging from multiple physical and virtual cards, airport lounge access, and luxury hotel discounts. Simply put, ether.fi Cash's unique advantages lie in its non-custodial security, integrated yield, collateralized spending, and strong cashback.
Tria Card
Tria is a consumer-centric chain abstraction platform that launched the Tria Card, a digital bank card that seamlessly integrates cryptocurrency functionality with traditional banking services.
Tria Card offers both physical and virtual card formats, meeting diverse needs for offline, online, and contactless payments. It integrates three functional modules: Spend, Earn, and Trade, forming a closed loop of spending, earning, and trading. Tria Spend supports over 1,000 cryptocurrencies (such as USDC and ETH) and can be used at over 130 million merchants in over 150 countries worldwide. It supports Apple Pay and Google Pay, with real-time conversion to local currency for settlement. Tria Earn offers optimized on-chain earning strategies (supporting protocols such as Aave and Compoun). Users can transparently earn 10-20% APY with a single click of a stake, with all earnings deposited directly into their self-custodial wallet.
Tria's core transaction technology relies on the BestPath AVS system on Arbitrum, an AI-optimized exchange and cross-chain bridging tool that selects the fastest and cheapest route from multiple paths. It supports mainstream chains such as EVM, SVM, Move-VM, Cosmos, and Bitcoin, automatically processing cross-chain transactions without requiring users to pay gas fees or manually bridge. Additionally, the Tria Card enhances the user experience through a multi-faceted reward system, offering cardholders access to benefits such as cashback, event rewards, weekly airdrops, and multiplier rewards.
Tria's CEO is Vijit Katta, former head of the Polygon Labs accelerator, and its co-founder, Parth Bhalla, previously participated in the development of India's largest DID chain. In October of this year, Tria announced that it had secured $12 million in pre-seed funding from investors including P2 Ventures, Aptos, Elliptic founder James Smith, and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.
MetaMask Card
The MetaMask Card is a crypto debit card launched by MetaMask in 2024. It allows users to spend cryptocurrency directly from their self-managed MetaMask wallet. It's compatible with all 150 million merchants that accept Mastercard and offers a 1% to 3% cashback reward. The card comes in two forms: a virtual card for immediate use that can be added to Apple Wallet or Google Wallet for mobile NFC payments. The physical metal card has an annual fee of $199, is limited in quantity, and requires a waitlist.
Recently, MetaMask announced that it will launch a rewards program, MetaMask Rewards. In the future, users can earn points through MetaMask Card consumption and use them to redeem LINEA token airdrops.
Bunq
Bunq, Europe's second-largest digital bank, announced in April this year that it would partner with the crypto exchange Kraken to provide cryptocurrency trading services to its banking app users. It was officially launched in the Netherlands, France, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Belgium, and plans to expand to the entire European Economic Area, the UK and the US markets in the future.
The service, called "Bunq Crypto," has received EU MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) certification and is registered as a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP). Users can use Face ID or fingerprint verification to trade over 350 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, with transaction fees up to 1.99%. The service also allows users to earn additional returns on their cryptocurrency holdings, with staking rewards of up to 8.25%, though the platform takes a 25% commission.
UR Neobank
UR is an innovative financial product launched by Mantle Network, positioned as a hybrid of a "crypto wallet and a bank account," designed to provide a one-stop digital asset and fiat currency management solution for users worldwide. Available in over 45 countries, UR supports stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and USDe, as well as multiple fiat currencies like USD, EUR, and CHF, allowing users to easily manage multiple assets within a single account.
UR's core features include zero withdrawal fees, low-fee currency conversion, global transfers, and payment via the UR Mastercard debit card. It supports mainstream payment methods such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, WeChat Pay, and Alipay. Through UR, users can instantly convert digital assets into fiat currency from any wallet or supported blockchain at virtually zero cost. All transactions are conducted on the Mantle network, ensuring transparency, security, and verifiability.
UR's Pro membership offers a higher level of service, including a monthly transaction limit of up to CHF 100,000, zero-fee transfers, and an exclusive Pro card design, providing greater convenience for high-frequency trading and global spending. Meanwhile, USDe users holding Ethena can enjoy up to 5% APY, with rewards automatically distributed weekly, without the need for staking or bridging assets. UR also launched a referral rewards program. After users invite friends to register, complete KYC, and spend a specified amount, both the inviter and the invitee can receive rewards, with no restrictions.
Karma
Karma, the launch platform for the Believe ecosystem project, is about to begin fundraising on MetaDAO. Karma Pay is a new on-chain bank designed to make cryptocurrencies and stablecoins an everyday payment tool, bridging traditional finance and DeFi, with global coverage in over 220 countries. Through Karma, users' Phantom wallets can be transformed into real-world, non-custodial bank accounts, enabling every transaction to generate value and impact. The product features core functionality including real bank account information (using real IBANs and routing numbers to send and receive funds), cards and payments (using stablecoins for spending, card payments, and global transfers), instant settlement, cross-border capabilities, and self-custody. Know your customer (KYC) verification is handled by Bridge. Virtual and physical cards are not yet officially available.
Karma's token economics are designed based on real economic activities. Every transaction triggers an on-chain smart contract, and the protocol automatically charges a fee, part of which is used to repurchase and destroy $KARMA, provide community rewards, and make charitable donations, thereby creating a sustainable financial ecosystem.
Gnosis Pay
Gnosis Pay is based on the Gnosis Chain (formerly the xDai Chain) and claims to be the first on-chain self-custodial checking account, designed to allow users to use crypto assets directly for real-world payments without transferring funds to a centralized institution.
Its flagship product, the Gnosis Pay Card, is a Visa-certified, self-hosted debit card that connects users' cryptocurrency wallets directly to traditional bank payment systems. The card supports EUR, GBP, and various stablecoins (such as EURe, GBPe, and USDC), and can be used at over 80 million merchants in over 100 countries worldwide. It also supports Apple Pay and Google Pay.
In addition, Gnosis Pay also offers a cashback program based on GNO tokens, with a rebate rate of 1%-4%. Users holding OG NFTs can receive an additional 1% rebate and exclusive product experiences. The rebate rewards will be automatically airdropped into the user's Gnosis Pay account every week.
Gnosis co-founder Martin Köppelmann has over 20 years of software engineering experience and previously launched the Circles v2 protocol. Co-founder Stefan George previously founded the Bitcoin startup Fairlay and worked at ConsenSys. Gnosis products also include Gnosis Safe (multi-signature and programmable accounts), Gnosis Protocol (CowSwap), Conditional Tokens (prediction markets), and Gnosis Auction.
Sanafi Onchain
Sanafi Onchain is a DeFi platform built on Solana that aims to provide ethically driven on-chain banking services through AI and stablecoin technology.
The debit card service is one of Sanafi Onchain's upcoming core products. The card only supports transactions at verified ethical merchants, ensuring that funds are not used to support industries such as alcohol and gambling. Users can earn $SANA token rewards or discounts during use, incentivizing ethical consumption and user loyalty. Rewards can be tracked through a mobile interface and redeemed for services or charitable donations.
Sanafi Onchain is a self-funded team. Founder Fitoy Wicaksana has over 10 years of experience in Islamic fintech, having previously served as Chief Product Officer at ALAMI, the largest Islamic P2P lending platform, and Fasset, a Southeast Asian digital asset platform. Core contributor Jume is a former product manager at DeFi protocol Kyber Network and stablecoin issuer StraitsX.
VPay
VPay is built on the Basechain and launched through Virtuals Protocol's Genesis platform. As an AI-driven Web3 omnibank, VPay is committed to integrating the functionality of digital assets with real-world consumption, providing users with decentralized, intelligent financial services.
The platform allows users to open offshore USD accounts on the Base chain, supporting USDC top-ups and seamless cryptocurrency and fiat payments, as well as global Visa network spending. Users can generate virtual debit cards (vCards) for online payments, with physical cards coming soon. VPay's core AI agent monitors risk in real time, optimizes spending, and provides personalized financial advice. It also supports token swaps and DeFi yield farming, helping users easily manage and grow their financial assets.
VPay’s native token, $VPAY, can be used to purchase virtual or physical debit cards, for in-app token swaps, for platform governance, and to unlock advanced features like multi-card customization and priority access to physical cards.
Judging from the team background, VPay is backed by Dubai's fintech company Biptap, which focuses on providing privacy-first offshore banking solutions and announced in 2024 that it had received US$2 million in Pre-Seed round of financing.
Avici
Avici is a decentralized internet banking platform built on Solana, designed to enable people to manage their own funds on-chain, without relying on traditional banks. Its vision is to reshape the global financial landscape by enabling unsecured loans, salary accounts, Visa payment cards, and future on-chain mortgages through DeFi, Futarchy governance, and a credit scoring system. Avici's team members come from Liverpool Football Club (LFC) and the Decentralized PIN project Mercle, among others.
Currently, Avici's core products and features include the Avici Visa payment card (supporting global spending with USD/EUR deposits and has already generated $1.2 million in tips), a smart payroll account, a trust scoring system, and future plans for on-chain mortgages. Avici offers a Visa-backed credit card for everyday payments and online and offline purchases. Users can access corresponding credit lines using crypto assets without having to convert cryptocurrencies into fiat currency. The platform also allows for user self-custody, supports physical card mailing, can be integrated with Apple Pay and Google Pay, and offers travel rewards, insurance, and global spending services through the Visa network. The platform's revenue streams include transaction fees, card sales, and deposit fees.
Avici will conduct an ICO on October 14th through MetaDAO, the ICM launch platform, with a minimum fundraising amount of $2 million. The team will allocate zero tokens, with all funds allocated for global Visa card expansion, the launch of a trust scoring system, and the introduction of an unsecured lending product.
