Neo Bank Outlook 2026: The Triumvirate Battle Among Superform, Veera, and Tria—Who Will Become the Alipay of Crypto?

2026.01.08

Neo Bank Outlook 2026: The Triumvirate Battle Among Superform, Veera, and Tria—Who Will Become the Alipay of Crypto?

These three major projects represent different approaches to solving the same problem: how to make cryptocurrency as easy to use as traditional banking, while preserving the core feature of self-custody.

2026.01.08 - 08:36:27

支付

Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights

Author: Mesh

Translation: TechFlow

January 6, 2026

I’ve been tracking the “wallet to bank” trend for several months now, and honestly, the pace of progress is astonishing.

By the end of 2025, three projects hit significant transaction volume milestones—achieving what MetaMask never could: turning your cryptocurrency into real spending power without ever touching a centralized exchange (CEX). Superform, Veera, and Tria are no longer just crypto wallets—they’re building actual banks.

The data speaks for itself. By November last year, Tria had reached $1 million in daily transaction volume, over 150,000 users, and an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of around $20 million. Veera expanded to 108 countries with 4 million users. Superform’s total value locked (TVL) surged 300% in just six months, hitting $144 million.

This isn’t another DeFi 2.0 hype cycle. It’s an infrastructure shift that everyone saw coming—but no one expected it to arrive this fast.

Let’s dive deep into these three projects, and other potential contenders on the horizon.

What Is an Onchain Neobank?

Let me break it down, because this term gets thrown around loosely.

An onchain neobank combines three traditionally incompatible elements:

DeFi's Power: Yield optimization, staking, cross-chain swaps.
Traditional Banking UX: A card you can use at Starbucks, instant payments, cashback rewards.
Blockchain Abstraction: No gas fees, no bridge interfaces, no network switching for users.

How is this different from Revolut or Coinbase? You hold your own private keys. How is it different from MetaMask? You can spend crypto as easily as fiat—no need to worry about which chain your USDC is on.

In short, this is the evolution that happens when DeFi protocols realize regular users don’t want to manually bridge assets or calculate gas fees. They just want a card they can swipe.

One of the Big Three

@superformxyz caught my attention mid-2025, when its primary users were institutional investors. Now, it positions itself as the “savings account” layer of onchain finance.

What Are They Doing?

Superform’s core is automating your funds across high-yield vaults on 7+ chains. Deposit USDC, and Superform finds you the best APY—whether from Aave, Curve, or yield farms from protocols you’ve never heard of.

Performance Data (as of end-2025):

TVL: $144 million (300% growth in six months)
Funding: $12.9M raised across seed, strategic, and public rounds
FDV: ~$90 million

Why It Matters?

Superform’s SuperVaults v2, launched in Q4 2025, changed the game. The “cross-chain instant deposit” feature lets you deposit on Base while Superform deploys capital to Arbitrum vaults in the background—no manual bridging, no waiting. Fully automated.

Previously, yield optimization required expertise: tracking APYs, calculating gas, timing bridges. Superform reduced all of that to “one click.”

What Sets Them Apart?

Superform isn’t trying to be your spending app—it’s the savings backend of onchain finance. Unlike Tria, which focuses on liquidity efficiency, Superform prioritizes capital growth.

It also offers institutional-grade security (audited by Zellic and Omniscia), making it a “safe asset” option. Many DAOs and protocol treasuries park capital here—an endorsement of deep market trust.

Veera’s Trajectory Is Fascinating

@On_Veera has taken an unusual path—from a reward browser (Brave-style) to a full financial operating system. Today, it serves over 4 million users, many in emerging markets largely ignored by Western VCs.

Key Stats:

User Base: 4M+ users across 108 countries
Funding: $6M seed round led by Ayon Capital (Feb 2024)
Core Markets: India, Southeast Asia, Africa

Product Evolution:

Started as a “browse-to-earn” browser, now evolving into:

Browsing Rewards → Wallet → Staking/Yield → Payment Card (Q1 2026) → Credit Features (Q1 2026)

Roadmap includes physical debit cards and desktop wallet in Q2 2026. Their iteration speed is blistering.

Why Veera Could Be a Giant?

Traditional banks won’t serve users in rural India with $50 in savings. Revolut rarely enters most of Africa. Veera solves distribution by meeting real needs: mobile-first, low-balance friendly, deeply embedded in browsing behavior.

Their growth loop is elegant: users earn small crypto rewards from browsing, then discover staking or spending via payment cards. Onboarding is frictionless because value is immediate.

Competitive Angle:

Veera isn’t competing with Coinbase—it’s up against Paytm, MTN Mobile Money, and M-Pesa. These dominate emerging markets where crypto adoption is rising but infrastructure is weak.

Four million users in these markets are a dream for most crypto projects. If they execute on physical cards in Q2, they could scale like Paytm did.

Tria: The Winner in Chain Abstraction

@useTria was one of the few projects I actually downloaded and tested in beta. Its UX stands out—fresh and intuitive.

Current Stats (Early 2026):

Active Users: 150,000+
Beta Transaction Volume: $20M+
Daily Spend: Broke $1M/day in Nov 2025
ARR: ~$20M
Funding: $12M raised (Oct 2025)
FDV: Valued between $100M–$200M

How Does It Work?

Tria’s “Unchained” infrastructure hides blockchain complexity entirely. Users maintain a unified balance across chains. When you spend, Tria’s “BestPath” engine:

Checks your assets across chains
Finds optimal liquidity routes
Executes swaps or cross-chain moves in the background
Completes payment in seconds

The experience is seamless: open app, tap pay, done. All blockchain complexity runs silently behind the scenes.

Tria’s holiday campaign Triasmas (their loyalty program) proved native crypto rewards can rival traditional credit card points. Users spent daily and earned cashback—proof of product-market fit.

Why It Matters?

Chain abstraction is key to making crypto usable for ordinary people. Other solutions force users to think about networks, gas, bridges. Tria removes all that friction.

Hitting $1M in daily spend validates real consumer demand—not yield farming or speculation, but buying coffee, groceries, paying bills. Over 150K users and $20M ARR show this is beyond beta hype.

Positioning:

Tria is currently the closest thing to a traditional bank account in crypto. It wins on speed and simplicity, not blockchain complexity—making it the strongest candidate for mainstream adoption. Though hardcore crypto users may miss more control.

vs. Argent & Gnosis:

Argent pioneered smart wallets with social recovery and account abstraction. But it stayed focused on security and Ethereum. In 2026, new onchain banks prioritize speed and ease of movement—how quickly and easily money flows.

vs. Revolut & Coinbase:

Centralized platforms offer better UX but require surrendering custody. Onchain neobanks deliver similar convenience without sacrificing self-custody. Users keep their private keys (or MPC shares) and still get debit card functionality.

Beyond the Big Three

ether.fi: A Giant’s Strategic Pivot

@ether_fi started as a liquid restaking protocol, but by late 2025 pivoted hard into onchain banking—at a scale unmatched by others.

Stats (Late 2025 / Early 2026):

TVL: $8B–$11B
ARR: $80M
Product: Cash card with 3% crypto cashback

Innovation:

ether.fi’s cash card lets users borrow against re-staked ETH (eETH) at ~4% APR without unstaking. They keep earning re-staking rewards while accessing liquidity for spending.

This cleanly solves the liquidity dilemma for yield farmers.

With $8B–$11B TVL, ether.fi is becoming the “Chase Bank” of onchain neobanking—scale and liquidity strong enough to support serious consumer lending.

Challenge:

Moving from DeFi infrastructure to consumer banking is hard. Despite capital, ether.fi lacks Tria’s UX polish or Veera’s distribution muscle. Execution matters more than TVL here.

Rainbow: The Super App Experiment

Rainbow will launch its $RNBW token (TGE) on February 5, 2026, with an interesting structure: the Rainbow Foundation will hold 20% equity to reward token holders.

What Are They Building?

Rainbow is developing a multi-functional mobile interface—perps, swaps, prediction markets, wallet. Think consumer-facing “Bloomberg Terminal,” not a classic neobank.

Equity-Token Link:

This equity-token model is experimental. If it works, others will copy. If it fails, it becomes a cautionary tale of overpromising.

Risk:

High risk of feature bloat. Trying to do everything may dilute focus and weaken competitiveness against specialists. The Feb TGE will reveal whether the market sees value—or just a marketing gimmick.

Plasma One: Stablecoin-Native Pioneer

Launched in Sept 2025 as the “first stablecoin-native neobank.”

Features:

4% cashback
Available in 150+ countries
High yield on stablecoin balances

Niche Positioning:

Plasma One eliminates crypto volatility by focusing solely on stablecoins—appealing to users who want onchain benefits without price risk.

Key Question:

“First stablecoin-native” sounds more like marketing than moat. Any competitor can add stablecoin-only mode. Ultimately, success depends on execution, not positioning.

Risks to Watch

Sustainability of Yields

Let’s be honest. High returns like Veera’s browsing rewards or 15% APY are mostly funded by VC capital and token emissions.

Remember Anchor’s 20% UST rate? We know how that ended—the collapse of Terra.

Same question looms over 2026’s onchain neobanks: What happens when subsidies end?

Sustainable models must generate real revenue—card interchange fees, loan spreads, subscriptions. Projects burning token reserves to boost APY may not survive to next funding round.

Tria’s $20M ARR sets a benchmark: real revenue from real transactions, not token incentives.

Watch for: Transparency in revenue sources—clear breakdown of organic vs. token-subsidized income. If they won’t disclose it, that says something.

Regulatory Uncertainty

2025’s debates around the U.S. “Stablecoin Act” created uncertainty. If regulators require KYC for self-custodied “banks,” the industry could split:

Compliant hybrid projects (with institutional backing and regulatory infrastructure) thrive in the U.S.
Pure self-custody apps (like Tria and Superform) may geo-block U.S. users or add compliance layers—potentially undermining their core value.

Europe’s MiCA rules brought clarity in 2024–2025. Clear regulations help legitimize projects but raise entry barriers.

Key Question: Can these protocols adapt to regulation without losing their decentralized essence?

The MetaMask Threat

MetaMask has 30M monthly active users (MAU) and massive brand recognition. For Veera or Tria to reach 10M users, they must be vastly better—not just slightly.

Chain abstraction is a standout feature, but not an unbreakable moat. MetaMask could roll out gasless transactions and unified balances within six months. If so, onchain banks’ edge shrinks to payment cards and yield optimization.

Defensibility:

Tria: Payment network (hard to replicate quickly)
Superform: Yield optimization algorithms (more sustainable)
Veera: Focus on markets MetaMask hasn’t reached (geographic moat)

Who will win? We’ll see.

Outlook for 2026

Most Likely to Hit 1M DAU First: Tria

Tria’s UX is already mature. $1M daily spend and 150K+ users signal strong consumer demand. If rumors of a Q1 Mastercard network integration materialize, Tria could pull far ahead.

Chain abstraction matters most to mainstream users who don’t care about blockchain tech. They just want to buy coffee with crypto—without understanding how.

$20M ARR proves Tria has found real product-market fit, not just beta buzz.

Safest Bet for Sustained Growth: Superform

Yield optimization survives every market cycle. Even if consumer-focused neobanks struggle, institutions (DAOs, protocols, treasuries) will keep capital in optimized vaults.

Superform’s focus on “stable capital” means lower volatility and steadier growth. Less flashy, more durable.

Biggest Dark Horse: Veera

4 million users in India and Southeast Asia is unmatched in crypto. If Veera successfully launches physical payment cards in Q2, it could become the “Paytm of crypto.”

It scaled in markets underestimated by Western VCs—massive untapped potential.

Most Likely to Be Acquired: ether.fi

With $8B–$11B TVL and $80M ARR, ether.fi is a prime acquisition target for Coinbase, Kraken, or traditional banks entering crypto. By end-2026, as legacy finance opts to buy proven infrastructure rather than build from scratch, ether.fi may become a consolidation play.

Common Traits of Onchain Banks

All three are building a new kind of financial super app: combining DeFi’s power with everyday banking UX, all under self-custody.

Shared DNA:

Non-Custodial Core: Users control keys and assets, avoiding risks of frozen or seized funds on centralized platforms.
Unified Operating System: Earn, spend, trade across chains in one app—no more juggling multiple dApps like traditional wallets.
Mass-Market Focus: Replaces “read 47 docs on liquidity pools” with “earn more, do less.”
Perfect Timing: Emerged by end-2025—the next phase after DeFi 2.0. Better L2s, account abstraction, and real-world demand converged.

Different Paths, Same Goal

Superform: Yield optimization + institutional infrastructure
Veera: Global credit & yield operating system
Tria: Consumer-first spending & payments platform

Together, they’re creating a new category. “Onchain neobanks” are now seen as a distinct sector, not just isolated projects. This narrative momentum matters for fundraising, partnerships, and market perception.

Final Thoughts

Self-custody is becoming easier than ever. These three represent different approaches to the same challenge: making crypto as easy as traditional banking—while keeping self-custody intact.