SoFi Launches First Bank-Issued Tokenized Deposit for Consumers at 4.40% APY
Published October 22, 2026, 6:50 PM PKT. Based on the SoFi Technologies press release distributed via BusinessWire on October 22, 2026 (primary source), and reporting by Reuters, The Block and the Wall Street Journal on October 22, 2026 (secondary sources). This is the first MABOnChain article on SoFi Earn. It is distinct from MABOnChain's October 17 article on Coinbase crypto-backed loans and 17 banks developing tokenized deposits, which covered institutional plans, not a consumer launch, and from the October 10 HSBC and Ant Digital test of tokenized deposits for AI-agent payments.
SoFi Technologies announced on October 22, 2026 that it has launched SoFi Earn (SOFIE), which the company calls the first and only national bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers. Each SOFIE represents $1 held on deposit at SoFi Bank, earns 4.40% annual percentage yield, and is covered by FDIC insurance up to applicable limits, according to the company announcement. Members can convert SOFIE one for one into the SoFiUSD stablecoin, then use the stablecoin to buy crypto directly in the SoFi app or move money over blockchain rails 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The product is rolling out to SoFi Crypto members now through November 2026, SoFi said.
The 4.40% deposit, and the SoFiUSD switch
The mechanics are deliberately two-step, and the distinction between the two steps is the whole product. SOFIE itself is a tokenized deposit, meaning a deposit liability of SoFi Bank, N.A., a member of the FDIC, and it is not a payment stablecoin, according to the company's disclosures. Funds represented by SOFIE are eligible for FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category under the FDIC's general deposit insurance rules. The deposit keeps earning interest until the member converts it, SoFi said, and the company gives the example of a member saving $5,000 for a future crypto purchase and earning the applicable yield while waiting. Once converted, the SoFiUSD stablecoin is what moves onchain, and SoFiUSD, like other stablecoins, is not an FDIC-insured deposit, The Block notes.
The yield itself comes with the usual bank caveats, and SoFi states them plainly. The 4.40% annual percentage yield is variable and subject to change at any time, rates are current as of October 20, 2026, there is no minimum balance requirement, and fees may reduce earnings, according to the rate disclosure. "Too much money in the digital asset ecosystem is sitting idle, leaving massive potential earnings on the table for millions of people," SoFi chief executive Anthony Noto said in the announcement. "We believe your money should keep working for you until the moment you need it. SoFi Earn combines the earning power and protections of a bank deposit with the speed and utility of digital assets, giving people more value, flexibility and control over their money." Crypto bought through SoFi Crypto is a separate matter: the company warns that digital assets offered through SoFi Crypto are highly speculative, involve significant risk, may result in the complete loss of value, are not deposits, and are not insured by the FDIC or SIPC.
The GENIUS Act gap SoFi is stepping into
The timing is not accidental, because a new law closed the door SoFi just walked through. The GENIUS Act, signed last year, barred stablecoin issuers from paying interest on holdings, Reuters reports, which put pressure on the model in which funds earmarked for crypto trading sat in interest-bearing stablecoins while waiting to be deployed. SoFi's structure sidesteps that ban by paying interest on a bank deposit, not on a stablecoin: the yield accrues while the money is still a deposit liability on SoFi Bank's balance sheet, and only after conversion does it become SoFiUSD, which pays no interest as a stablecoin. The Wall Street Journal notes that previous attempts to offer yield-bearing crypto savings accounts either collapsed during crypto crashes or were blocked by federal regulators over hazy legal status, including Coinbase scrapping its Lend yield program in 2021 after the Securities and Exchange Commission deemed it an unregistered security.
The prize SoFi is chasing is the idle cash already sitting in crypto wallets. Federal Reserve research cited by SoFi estimates that approximately $64 billion, or 21.2% of the stablecoin market, sits idle in rarely used, forgotten or inactive wallets. Reuters reports that traditional financial institutions are developing products to tap the crypto market on the argument that bank-issued alternatives offer greater regulatory oversight than stablecoins issued by non-bank entities, and that in September 2026 a group of 21 financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank said they planned to create a company this year to issue a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency in the first half of 2027. SoFi's answer to that competition is to be first to market for retail customers: The Block and the Journal both report that no national bank has previously offered a federally insured tokenized deposit for everyday customers, while large institutions have so far built wholesale settlement networks and tokenized Treasury funds for institutional clients only.
SoFi's fifth crypto launch in under a year
SoFi Earn is the company's fifth new crypto offering in less than a year, according to the announcement, and the sequence shows a bank building a full digital money stack rather than testing a single product. In November 2025, SoFi became the first and only nationally chartered bank to launch crypto trading for consumers, and members can now trade more than 40 cryptocurrencies through SoFi Crypto, the company said. In December 2025, SoFi launched SoFiUSD, which it calls the first stablecoin issued by a U.S. national bank, and the stablecoin is already used to settle SoFi's entire card program across Mastercard's global payments network, according to the announcement. Earlier in 2026, SoFi launched Big Business Banking, a platform letting companies hold deposits and move money around the clock across traditional payment rails, stablecoins and digital assets.
Three things will decide whether SOFIE becomes a template or a footnote. The first is the rollout itself, which SoFi says completes in November 2026, and whether the 4.40% yield holds once the product is open to all SoFi Crypto members. The second is imitation: whether other nationally chartered banks follow with their own tokenized deposits, or whether regulators push back on a structure that pays bank-deposit interest on funds parked for crypto purchases. The third is the competitive response from stablecoin issuers, which cannot pay interest under the GENIUS Act but can compete on rewards, integrations and distribution. SoFi counts 15.8 million members across its app, and if even a fraction of its crypto users park idle purchase funds in SOFIE rather than in a non-interest-bearing stablecoin, the product will have proved the commercial case for bank-issued tokenized deposits. If uptake is thin, it will suggest that crypto users value onchain flexibility over a bank yield, even an FDIC-insured one.
This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.
Sources
- SoFi Technologies, SoFi Launches SoFi Earn (SOFIE), the First and Only National Bank-Issued Tokenized Deposit for Consumers (October 22, 2026), primary source
- Reuters, SoFi targets idle crypto cash with interest-bearing tokenized deposit (October 22, 2026), secondary source
- The Block, SoFi launches interest-bearing, FDIC-insured tokenized deposit for crypto users (October 22, 2026), secondary source
- Wall Street Journal, SoFi to Launch Retail Interest-Bearing Tokenized Deposits (October 22, 2026), secondary source
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