Liam Young and Tore Zhang founded Stafi in 2019, an innovative decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol providing liquid staking solutions.
With DeFi booming back in 2021, StaFi tried to differentiate itself from competitors by focusing on liquid staking and making the staking process as decentralized as possible.
Don't Blink – The Shift is Here
📉 If the vote passes, $FIS token emission will decrease drastically.
⚡️ @Chaos_Fi , StaFi's 2nd SubDAO, has now become the #1 LST project on @SonicSVM with surging TVL.
🚀 More SubDAOs are coming: @0G_labs , @HyperliquidX , @MorphLayer , and… https://t.co/dTp9n1BSsQ pic.twitter.com/SxUfF3pIC6
— StaFi Protocol (@StaFi_Protocol) April 23, 2025
While Stafi made a promising start, it struggled to maintain its user base and faced a lot of challenges over the years. Here we will talk about what the project is nowadays and what went wrong.
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StaFi (FIS) Crypto Vision: The Rise And Fall
Liam Young and Tore Zhang both transitioned from their positions at Alibaba to the blockchain space in 2017. They shared a common interest in addressing the limitations of proof-of-stake systems, particularly the illiquidity of staked assets.
The vision was to create a decentralized protocol that allows users to stake their tokens and receive ‘rTokens’—liquid representations of staked assets—enabling them to participate in DeFi activities without sacrificing staking rewards.
During the DeFi boom in 2021, this innovation proved to be highly attractive to users; traditional staking users had to lock their tokens away for a set time. StaFi product quickly gained traction, especially among those in the DeFi space who wanted to maximize their returns without being tied down by staking lock-ups.
This was a game-changer for many users. They also focused on decentralization to set themselves apart from competitors like Lido, which many believe to be centralized.
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They also launched the FIS Crypto, providing the community with governance rights that supported StaFi decentralization. This move solidified StaFi as one of the first protocols to seamlessly integrate staking rewards and DeFi participation in a user-friendly and truly decentralized manner.
Everything was going according to plan; StaFi gained a significant number of users, TVL hit 80 million, and FIS got listed on Binance and hit a peak of $4.82, which puts it at a 77 million market cap. This reflects the trust it gained from investors. but now let’s see…
The current status of StaFi
While recently pumped over 85%, Looking at its current status of StaFi, it does not have the success it had when it was launched, as the current TVL is just 4.5M and the ($FIS) market cap is about 20M.
Anyway, it still has its products working with continuous support from the team as they keep pushing new updates, with the most recent ones being theirs. StaFI 2.0 Transition to Liquid Staking as a Service (LSaaS) and Integration of AI In collaboration with Elyra.
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Fantasy Pepe ($FEPE) enters the crypto scene with a fresh approach to meme coins. Unlike typical tokens that rely solely on community hype, Fantasy Pepe combines AI-powered football matches, prediction markets, and staking rewards into one ecosystem.
Users can predict match outcomes in AI-generated football games, earn rewards through staking, and participate in community governance.
The prediction markets represent the primary utility of the $FEPE token Users spend tokens to predict various outcomes of the AI-generated matches, such as winning teams, match scores, or special in-game events. These predictions create a natural demand for the token.
Fantasy Pepe includes a staking system with dynamic rewards. Early adopters receive higher rewards, with staking APY of up to 1300%.
The presale price begins at $0.0003 per token and gradually increases as demand surges. The current amount raised is $216k out of $250k before the next price raise.
Stay up to date with the project by joining the online communities at X.
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Key Takeaways
- Despite the initial rise, StaFi struggled throughout the years.
- The product is still working, and the team is pushing updates.
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