ether.fi, a crypto finance app with a Visa card, has acquired selected assets of Zeal, a self-custody crypto wallet and spending card, as Zeal winds down its app. ether.fi announced the deal on X on October 23, 2026.
Terms were not disclosed. PANews and TokenPost both reported that the value of the transaction was not made public, and neither company has said what the selected assets include.
Zeal said the deal covers selected assets and does not include user accounts, keys or funds. Zeal users can instead choose to move their balances to ether.fi through a guided migration inside the Zeal app. Users are not required to choose ether.fi.
What Zeal built
Zeal is a self-custody wallet built on Gnosis Pay, the crypto card infrastructure provider. Its services include Visa card spending under a self-custody model and a cash-yield product, TokenPost reported.
The app is operated by GRWTH LBS Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, according to Zeal's website. Zeal did not disclose its funding, investors or user numbers.
"The Zeal app is winding down," Zeal says on its website. It asks users to move their assets by December 1, 2026, and has not set a date for when the app will stop working. Gnosis Pay says Zeal's card services will be wound up by December 20, 2026.
“You choose what to move, and nothing moves automatically.”
How the migration works
Moving to ether.fi is optional. "You choose what to move, and nothing moves automatically," Zeal said in its announcement.
Users start from the Zeal home screen, enter an email address and a six-digit code to create an ether.fi account, move their balance, and then complete identity verification and set up a card, DeFi Prime reported. Supported assets move unchanged. Unsupported assets are converted during the move, which incurs network fees and may reduce their value; ether.fi's migration page does not give a conversion quote or an asset-by-asset table.
Gnosis Pay's guide tells Zeal users to withdraw any balance from Zeal's earn product first, because assets left there will not be migrated, and suggests adding a second owner wallet such as MetaMask or Rabby to keep control of their accounts.
Why ether.fi is buying
The deal gives ether.fi a route to Zeal's existing users at a time when they must choose somewhere else to keep their money. After migrating, users can borrow against their portfolio, earn yield, trade tokenised stocks and gold, and spend with ether.fi's Visa card, PANews reported.
Zeal's own website describes ether.fi as a separate company that has acquired selected Zeal assets and is offering existing users a voluntary, guided transition. Neither side said whether any Zeal employees are joining ether.fi.
ether.fi and Zeal remain separate companies, and accounts opened through the migration fall under ether.fi's terms and privacy policy. DeFi Prime noted that cashback is advertised at 3% on the Zeal migration page and up to 4% in the announcement, without an explanation of what qualifies for the higher rate, and that borrowing carries the risk of automatic liquidation.
Other options for Zeal users
ether.fi is not the only destination. Gnosis Pay lists Rebind for euro cardholders, which carries over the user's account, IBAN and card without new identity checks, and Picnic or MiniPay for US dollar cardholders. It says a solution for sterling cards is still being worked on.
For euro users who pick Rebind, its migration tool moves assets on the Gnosis and Base networks automatically. Users who only want their money out can withdraw through Gnosis Pay's own web app, opened from the browser inside Zeal. Gnosis Pay said support for the transition is available only through the chat inside the Zeal app.
Gnosis Pay also warned users that bad actors are active in Zeal's Discord server and said neither it nor Zeal will ever ask for a seed phrase.
