EtherFi CEO Mike Silagadze doesn’t think crypto has a product problem but rather a distraction problem:

“Look at crypto consumer apps like Pump.fun, centralized exchanges, even Polymarket, and it’s casino version one, casino version two, just different window dressing. ‘Gamble on the weather now.’ It’s super profitable, because gambling is a hugely profitable industry.”

Silagadze said as much to David Hoffman on the latest episode of the podcast amid laying out what EtherFi, as a self-custodial neobank that’s evolving into a de facto neobrokerage, provides an alternative against.

EtherFi is explicitly the more boring, more sustainable foil, aimed at offering useful financial products that can…