Aave is DeFi’s largest lending house. Digitap ($TAP) is aiming to become the de facto crypto banking layer. 2026 looks like it could be an excellent year for altcoins, thanks to expectations that the Clarity Act will be passed soon. But why is $TAP beating AAVE as the leading banking altcoin to buy this year?
DeFi lending was the flagship trade of the last cycle. It showed that on-chain money markets could work and scale. Many investors who bought AAVE early got rich, and now smart money is looking for the tokens that will hit massive adoption curves like Aave did last cycle. And banking is one of the most obvious trades of the year. Stablecoin supply keeps expanding, regulators are moving toward clearer rules, and the next leg of crypto adoption is likely to come from better financial apps. That’s why fintech-esque altcoins are stealing the premium from DeFi giants and rank as the best cryptos to buy now.
Aave is DeFi’s largest lending house. Digitap ($TAP) is aiming to become the de facto crypto banking layer. 2026 looks like it could be an excellent year for altcoins, thanks to expectations that the Clarity Act will be passed soon. But why is $TAP beating AAVE as the leading banking altcoin to buy this year?
DeFi lending was the flagship trade of the last cycle. It showed that on-chain money markets could work and scale. Many investors who bought AAVE early got rich, and now smart money is looking for the tokens that will hit massive adoption curves like Aave did last cycle. And banking is one of the most obvious trades of the year. Stablecoin supply keeps expanding, regulators are moving toward clearer rules, and the next leg of crypto adoption is likely to come from better financial apps. That’s why fintech-esque altcoins are stealing the premium from DeFi giants and rank as the best cryptos to buy now.
Digitap ($TAP): A Banking Product That Makes Crypto Feel Like Money
Digitap is built more like a fintech product than a crypto project. It has already shipped its omni-banking app on iOS and Android, and this new style of banking offers a single dashboard that blends fiat and crypto into a single experience. It automatically routes payments on the best rails and makes crypto speed and stablecoin settlement accessible to regular folks.
The key point is that the crypto part is almost hidden, wrapped in a neobank UX, and that’s what gives this an enormous addressable market. Digitap’s product suite is constantly growing, and the most adopted product to date is the non-KYC visa card.
Anyone can sign up and start spending on-chain assets with millions of merchants globally, thanks to the Digitap card. All payments are converted at the point of sale with Digitap’s AI routing engine automatically finding the best swap price.
Digitap offers multi-rail settlement, which means users can have the best of TradFi and DeFi on one app. Payments can be sent on traditional banking rails through partners or on blockchains, depending on what’s faster, cheaper, or more reliable when the user initiates the transaction.
Money is starting to move in real time, and Digitap is perfectly suited to the digital-first generation and modern requirements of money.
AAVE vs. $TAP: Which is the Best Altcoin to Buy This January?
Aave remains a DeFi heavyweight, but Digitap is playing a different game. A core reason this banking altcoin has enjoyed such early success, raising more than $4.3 million, is the tokenomics design. Investors are sick of governance tokens, and $TAP is built into the ecosystem.
$TAP features a flywheel with 50% of profits used to burn token supply and reward stakers. Currently, participants can earn up to 124% APY from a fixed pool, and when $TAP launches, they will be earning real yield from banking profits. The current price of $TAP is $0.0439, meaning more than 3X potential returns for today’s buyers with a confirmed listing price of $0.14.
Thousands are already using its non-KYC Visa card, it just integrated Solana deposit for its global money app, and $TAP stakers are already earning. This new cohort of fintech-style altcoins looks primed to beat the DeFi giants this year, and $TAP is front and center of this trend.
Discover the future of crypto cards with Digitap by checking out their live Visa card project here:
