Rok Kopp
Rok Kopp is the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of ether.fi, a crypto‑native neobank on Ethereum that combines non‑custodial staking, automated yield and strategy vaults, and payment functionality in a single application, allowing users to save, grow, and spend crypto in one connected experience that includes staking ETH, deploying assets across decentralized finance (DeFi), accessing fiat on‑ and off‑ramps for global transfers, and paying for everyday goods with a linked payment card. [1][2]
Education
Kopp attended the University of Notre Dame, where he interned at the investment office and worked as a sports director.[1]
Career
Kopp started his sales career at CaptainU, an online recruiting ecosystem connecting high school athletes with college coaches, until February 2010. He then worked at Groupon, an experiences marketplace, holding various positions like account executive and city CEO, until October 2012.[1]
In 2012, as director of sales and later VP of enterprise sales, Kopp worked at Top Hat, a higher education app focused on enhancing traditional education to make it more engaging for students. It was here that he met Mike Silagadze, founder of Top Hat.[1][2]
He became CRO at Buildout, formerly Apto, a commercial real estate software company, working there until October 2019. The following month, he held the same position at Obsidian HR, a full-service professional employer organization (PEO), until January 2022. During this time, he joined the Revenue Collective, a global community for B2B go-to-market leaders, and became a limited partner at GTMfund, an early-stage VC fund focused on B2B SaaS.[1]
ether.fi
In April 2022, Kopp and Silagadze co-founded ether.fi, where Kopp serves as co-founder and Chief Growth Officer.[1] In an April 2024 interview with Incrypted, he shared his thoughts on the ETHFI token, integrating staking into L2 networks, and the future of crypto. At the start of the interview, he shared how he got into crypto:[2]
ether.fi grew from a non-custodial staking and restaking protocol into what Kopp describes as a crypto-native neobank, combining DeFi infrastructure with more familiar financial use cases.[2] By April 2024 it had become the largest liquid restaking (LRT) service on Ethereum, with nearly $3.9 billion in assets under management, and expanded its product suite into bank-like categories: Ether.fi Stake as a savings-style staking product, Ether.fi Liquid as investment and yield vaults, and Ether.fi Cash as spending tools including a crypto-backed card.[2][1]
Presentation
Managing Risk
Kopp presented ether.fi at TOKEN2049 Singapore 2023. He highlighted the significant growth of the staking market. He outlined current staking options, including custodial and non-custodial centralized solutions like Lido. Kopp discusses risks facing Ethereum staking, such as geographical and technological centralization and systemic risks when one provider exceeds 33% stake. Ether.fi aims to address these risks by offering decentralized, non-custodial staking and restaking solutions, emphasizing user custody of keys, and introducing products like ether.fan, tokenized liquid staking NFTs, and a staking fund for institutional clients, aiming to provide diversified options to the market.[3]
ether.fi and Liquid Restaking
In this conference talk at Web3 Forum 2025, Kopp described ether.fi as a decentralized, non-custodial liquid restaking platform built on Ethereum. He outlines how ether.fi’s liquid restaking products allow users to delegate staking and restaking while retaining control over their keys, and discusses the protocol’s approach to managing validator and protocol-level risks in the broader DeFi ecosystem.[4]
Building a Crypto-Native Neobank
In this conference talk, at ETHDenver Kopp presented ether.fi’s evolution from a decentralized, non-custodial staking and liquid restaking protocol into a broader crypto-native neobank. He describes products such as staking, yield vaults, and spending tools, and outlines how these offerings aim to make DeFi-style rewards usable in everyday finance.[5]
