Ether.fi invests $25M in Plume's RWA protocol Nest

DeFi protocol Ether.fi (ETHFI) has announced a $25 million strategic investment in Nest, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) yield protocol from Plume, to provide users with access to RWA-based yield opportunities. The integration will proceed in two stages. First, Ether.fi will focus on reallocating assets to the nBASIS vault, which is based on the USCC fund from RWA asset manager Superstate. Later, Nest's curated, custom RWA vaults will be integrated into the Ether.fi interface, offering eligible users easier exposure to institutional-grade investment returns from real-world assets. Plume co-founder Teddy Pornprinya said that while neobanks like Ether.fi attract significant retail funds, users are looking beyond simple DeFi for sustainable and diversified yield sources like RWAs. He added that trends such as increasing regulatory clarity in the U.S. and the proliferation of stablecoins will lead to greater demand for RWA vault infrastructure like Nest.