San Francisco-headquartered SoFi Technologies signaled Monday it would soon dive back into crypto following expectations the SEC would begin to clarify crypto rules under its new leadership.
While the firm once offered its customers the ability to trade 20 digital assets in the U.S.—including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin—the company called it quits in 2023, winding the service down after “careful consideration,” according to a statement at the time.
The company’s return will hinge on the regulatory clarity brought about under President Donald Trump’s administration, SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said during a Monday earnings call.
“We hope the administration and the regulators come up with clarity on what the outlook will be,” he said. “We will move as aggressively as anyone else once that is determined.”
SoFi’s crypto services could look vastly different for its 10 million customers than before, Noto said. Depending on how the regulatory picture shakes out, he said everything from digital asset custody to clearing and asset-backed lending—a program that Coinbase restarted this month—may be on the table.
“As the regulation changes, we will be incredibly aggressively tied to crypto and be in as many businesses that we can be across the entire platform,” he said.
As a financial services company, SoFi offers customers various products, from student loans to debit cards.
Bolstering its investment platform with crypto in 2019, the move mirrored Silicon Valley startups like Robinhood that were also expanding into the space.
Noto’s declaration comes not long after SEC’s acting chairman, Mark Uyeda, said that the agency could “do better.” Last week, the Commission unveiled a task force to regulate crypto without reliance on enforcement actions, mirroring one of Trump’s campaign promises.
Following the collapse of FTX in 2022, the SEC engaged in what advocates described as a regulatory onslaught. After Robinhood received an enforcement threat from the SEC, Vlad Tenev decried the SEC’s approach to the crypto space last year as an “improper attempt by the administrative state to stifle innovation.”
SoFi has tried to differentiate its investment services by making its platform a “one-stop shop,” and customers signaled in 2018 that crypto fits with that strategy, Noto said.
While SoFi shuttered its crypto services in 2023, the company has expanded its investment offerings elsewhere. SoFi launched its alternative investment platform in early 2024, allowing customers to access assets like the Japanese yen and gold.
In 2023, most of SoFi’s customers were given less than a month’s notice before their crypto funds were liquidated and deposited into their brokerage accounts. At the same time, SoFi users could migrate their crypto holdings to a new account at Blockchain.com.
SoFi did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Decrypt.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
