SoFi launches SoFi Earn, a bank-issued tokenized deposit paying 4.40% APY

A nationally chartered US bank is now offering consumers a blockchain token that pays interest and carries federal deposit insurance, a pairing regulators had long left to ordinary savings products. SoFi Technologies said on October 22, 2026 that it launched SoFi Earn, marketed as SOFIE, and called it the first and only national bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers. Each SOFIE represents one dollar held on deposit at SoFi Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, pays a variable 4.40% annual percentage yield, and carries no minimum balance requirement.

Tokenized deposits are not new in wholesale finance. Banks including Citi had already built them for institutional clients, Fortune noted. The novelty is the consumer wrapper: an account reached through a crypto trading account, convertible one for one into a dollar-pegged stablecoin and movable over blockchain rails at any hour. Cointelegraph reported on October 22, 2026, that holders can convert SOFIE into SoFiUSD, the bank's dollar-pegged stablecoin, to buy crypto in the SoFi app or send funds to supported external wallets, with the product rolling out to SoFi Crypto members through November.

The launch lands in a policy window that opened when stablecoin issuers lost the ability to pay yield. Reuters reported on October 22, 2026, that the GENIUS Act, signed last year, barred stablecoin issuers from paying interest and had "created an opening for banks to offer regulated, interest-bearing alternatives through products such as tokenized deposits." SoFi's pitch rests on that asymmetry: a bank deposit can pay interest and carry federal insurance, while a payment stablecoin under the new framework can do neither.

SoFi has spent a year assembling the pieces. In November 2025 it became the first and only nationally chartered bank to launch consumer crypto trading, a business that now covers more than 40 cryptocurrencies. In December 2025 it launched SoFiUSD, which it calls the first stablecoin issued by a US national bank and which already settles SoFi's entire card program across Mastercard's global payments network. Earlier in 2026 it launched Big Business Banking for fiat and digital assets. SoFi Earn is its fifth new crypto offering in less than a year, and it arrives with the company reporting 15.8 million members.

Key Facts

The terms come from the company release and from a bank rate sheet. SOFIE is a deposit liability of SoFi Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, is separate from SoFi Crypto, and is not a payment stablecoin. Funds are insured up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, for each account ownership category, and the APY is variable and current as of 10/20/26. Holders can convert SOFIE one for one into SoFiUSD and then buy crypto in the SoFi app or move money over blockchain rails 24/7.

Securities.io reported on October 22, 2026, that the SoFi Bank Tokenized Deposit Rate Sheet effective October 20, 2026 lists the Individual Tokenized Deposit Account at an interest rate of 4.31368%, corresponding to a 4.40% annual percentage yield. Interest accrues daily on the end-of-day balance using a daily periodic rate of 1/365 (or 1/366 in a leap year), compounds monthly and is credited monthly. SoFi Bank may change the rate and APY at any time without limit on amount or frequency, and may deduct interest if a credited transaction is returned, reversed, canceled or found unauthorized. Balances are not eligible for and will not be placed in the SoFi Insured Deposit Program.

The headline rate moved within hours of launch. Reuters reported on October 22, 2026, that its story carried a correction changing the annual percentage yield to 4.4% from 4.2% after the company revised the figure. The correction is a useful marker of what the product is: a bank-set variable yield rather than a rate fixed by code, and one that can move with the bank's own funding needs.

The company's case rests on a size estimate. The release cited Federal Reserve research estimating that about $64 billion, or 21.2% of the stablecoin market, sits idle in rarely used, forgotten or inactive wallets. SoFi offered the example of a member saving $5,000 for a future crypto purchase, holding the funds in SOFIE and earning the applicable APY until conversion. Anthony Noto, the chief executive, told Reuters that "too much money in the digital asset ecosystem is sitting idle, leaving massive potential earnings on the table for millions of people," adding that "the primary opportunity is with people who already participate in crypto and want that money to keep working and ready to move."

Fortune reported on October 22, 2026, that stablecoins such as USDC are backed one to one by dollars or US Treasuries and can be transferred to anyone with a crypto wallet, but exist outside the US banking system and are ineligible to earn interest or receive FDIC backing. SOFIE's disclosures draw the mirror image: it is a deposit liability of SoFi Bank, not a payment stablecoin, and the separate SoFiUSD token carries no FDIC insurance. Fortune said SoFi, which holds a federal banking charter, is the first to offer such a product at the consumer level.

Analysis

The bigger picture here is that a regulatory prohibition has created a product category, and the first mover is a chartered bank rather than a crypto firm. Stablecoin issuers lost the ability to pay yield; banks kept it, along with deposit insurance and access to the payment system. SoFi is betting that a meaningful slice of the roughly $64 billion it says sits idle in stablecoin wallets will accept a bank wrapper as long as that wrapper stays liquid enough to move at any hour. Whether the bet pays depends less on 4.40% than on whether traders believe the round trip into SOFIE and back costs them nothing in time or flexibility.

There is a fair question about why the product needs to exist at all. Fortune reported that it is not immediately obvious why SoFi is offering SoFi Earn when customers can already earn interest in its savings account and buy SoFiUSD. Noto's answer is that crypto users park money in stablecoins while riding out market swings and want that money working in the meantime. He told Fortune: "I say to my team 'money doesn't sleep' doesn't mean it just moves 24/7, but it also needs to be making money 24/7." He described crypto companies as low hanging fruit because they could pay Mastercard and other service providers that also bank with SoFi, and said users could toggle between ACH and wire transfers and blockchain rails in one interface.

The structural limit is distribution. Fortune noted that tokenized deposits can only move money if both parties have a relationship with the issuing bank, a constraint stablecoin advocates seize on. A dollar in SOFIE is a claim on SoFi Bank; a dollar in a stablecoin is a bearer instrument any wallet can accept. SoFi's design is a hybrid: hold SOFIE, convert to SoFiUSD at a one to one rate, and send the stablecoin onward. That keeps the yield inside the bank and the transferability outside it, but it also asks the customer to manage two products and a conversion step, and it leaves the bank holding the deposit only while the customer chooses not to move it.

Competition is forming on both sides. Reuters reported on October 22, 2026, that in September 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. Sam MacPherson, chief executive of the digital asset finance firm Spark, told Reuters: "Over the next year or so, you're going to see an inflection point. It is a big effort to move traditional finance on chain, but I think the economic drivers are just so powerful that it's inevitable."

Why It Matters

Deposit insurance is the feature that is hardest to copy. SOFIE balances are aggregated with other deposits in the same ownership category for FDIC purposes and insured up to $250,000 per depositor, per insured bank, per account ownership category, while SoFiUSD has no such backing. For a retail customer deciding where to park a few thousand dollars earmarked for a token purchase, the trade is straightforward: a variable bank rate and a federal backstop on one side, a bearer token with no yield on the other.

The timing matters as much as the terms. Cointelegraph reported on October 22, 2026, that on the previous day, October 21, 2026, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a final rule covering payment stablecoin issuance and some custody activities, with the GENIUS Act framework taking effect in mid-January 2027. SoFi launched into a rulemaking cycle rather than after one, and the line between a deposit and a stablecoin that its disclosures draw explicitly is the line regulators will spend the next year defining.

Scale is the other variable. SoFi reports 15.8 million members, a federal banking charter, a card program that already settles on SoFiUSD across Mastercard's network and more than 40 tradable cryptocurrencies. If a bank with that distribution can move crypto-adjacent cash onto its own balance sheet and keep it there, the economics of the stablecoin float change for every issuer that cannot pay yield.

Next Up

The near-term calendar is short. The rollout runs through November 2026, with members reaching the separate SOFIE deposit account through their SoFi Crypto account. The GENIUS Act framework takes effect in mid-January 2027, and the group of 21 financial institutions has said it plans to issue a dollar-pegged cryptocurrency in the first half of 2027. SoFi's next disclosures will show whether crypto members convert balances at scale or only test the product.

Watch the rate as well. SoFi Bank can change the APY at any time without limit on amount or frequency, and the figure was already revised from 4.2% to 4.4% within hours of launch. A variable yield is a marketing number until it survives a rate cycle, and the first test comes as the rollout reaches the full SoFi Crypto member base through November.