The self-custodial app brings USDe into everyday payments, savings and cross-border transfers, with annualized rewards of up to 6%. Ethena has launched a global money app built around its USDe synthetic dollar, expanding the crypto-native asset into everyday payments, savings and cross-border transfers. According to Tuesday’s announcement, the self-custodial Ethena Pay app allows users to hold USDe through a dollar-denominated balance, earn as much as 6% in annualized rewards and spend funds through a payment card, while supporting fiat onramps. The beta rollout includes 48 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and other regions, though the initial rollout is limited to 400 users, with access set to expand weekly, Ethena said in a Tuesday thread on X. Avalanche will serve as the exclusive settlement layer for payments and transfers. Read more
The Ethena Foundation proposed buying the token supply held by major early investors and revealed a fee switch to turn 95% of net protocol revenue into ENA buybacks. The native token of the synthetic dollar protocol Ethena (ENA) registered double-digit gains after the Ethena Foundation unveiled four ecosystem changes, including a proposal for revenue-funded token buybacks and a completed buyout of locked tokens held by some early investors. The Ethena Foundation opened a vote on a fee-switch proposal under which 95% of the net revenue paid to it from Ethena’s core business lines would be used to purchase ENA once the circulating supply of USDe reaches the first proposed milestone of $7.5 billion, the foundation said in a Thursday blog post. Tokenholders have until Sept. 2 to cast their votes. At press time, 65 votes representing about 14.4 million ENA in voting power had been cast, all in favor of the fee-switch proposal, according to Snapshot. Read more
The $1 billion facility will deploy assets backing USDe into overcollateralized institutional loans, expanding Ethena’s sources of returns beyond crypto basis strategies. FalconX and Ethena have launched a $1 billion secured lending facility that will use assets backing USDe to fund overcollateralized loans to institutional borrowers. The facility is structured through a special purpose vehicle, with FalconX originating and servicing the loans and managing collateral. Assets securing the loans will be held at qualified custodians, while the facility gives Ethena access to institutional lending as an additional source of returns on the assets backing USDe beyond the crypto basis strategies it has traditionally used. FalconX said the facility can support financing for institutional trading strategies, corporate treasury management and payments. The companies did not disclose the facility’s expected returns, loan terms, borrowers or how much capital has initially been deployed. Read more
USDe circulating supply has shrunk by 70% since the October bull market peak, when it topped $14 billion. Stablecoin infrastructure company StablecoinX has completed its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, allowing it to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday. StablecoinX is the first public stablecoin infrastructure company focused on supporting the Ethena ecosystem through decentralized verifier nodes and software infrastructure, and will trade under the symbol “USDE,” according to a statement on Thursday. “We believe Ethena has emerged as one of the most important platforms powering the next generation of digital dollars,” said Edward Chen, CEO and Chairman of StablecoinX. Read more
Ethena’s synthetic stablecoin USDe has seen its market cap cut almost in half since the Oct. 10 crash, as investors retreat from leveraged and synthetic collateral models. Ethena’s synthetic dollar USDe has shed about $8.3 billion in net outflows since the major liquidation event on Oct. 10, as confidence in leveraged and synthetic collateral structures continues to weaken. According to a report from 10x Research, the October sell-off marked a turning point for the crypto market, flipping the bull phase into a period of deleveraging. The crash erased an estimated $1.3 trillion in crypto market value, nearly 30% of total capitalization at the time. Ethena USDe (USDe), which relies on synthetic collateral and hedging mechanisms rather than traditional fiat reserves, faced a “sharp loss of confidence” under these conditions, the analysts wrote. Read more
Ethena’s USDe shed 24% of its supply in November, losing market share as fiat-backed stablecoins including USDT, USDC, PYUSD and RLUSD added billions. Ethena’s synthetic-dollar stablecoin USDe saw one of its sharpest monthly contractions yet, while fiat-backed stablecoins including USDT, USDC and PYUSD attracted billions in inflows. CoinGecko data showed that Ethena’s USDe stablecoin fell from a market capitalization of $9.3 billion on Nov. 1 to $7.1 billion on Nov. 30. The token saw about $2.2 billion in redemptions, marking a 24% decline in supply in November. Ethena’s USDe is a synthetic stablecoin that maintains its dollar peg through trading strategies with crypto and futures contracts rather than holding actual dollars. USDe outflows mean that users are either selling USDe on the open market, withdrawing from pools or unwinding their positions on decentralized applications (DApps). Read more
M2 Capital invested $20 million in Ethena’s ENA token as the protocol’s TVL neared $15 billion, with growing institutional backing from global crypto investors. M2 Capital, the investment arm of UAE-based M2 Holdings, invested $20 million in ENA, the governance token for Ethena, a crypto-native synthetic dollar protocol built on Ethereum. M2 Holdings, a conglomerate with digital asset exposure across custody, investment and wealth management, plans to integrate Ethena (ENA) products into client offerings through its affiliate, M2 Global Wealth Limited, according to a Thursday announcement. “M2’s investment in Ethena marks another important step forward for the Middle East’s most sophisticated digital asset investors,” said Kim Wong, managing director and head of treasury at M2 Holdings. Read more
YZi Labs has invested further into Ethena to push USDe adoption across more chains and platforms, while also assisting with the development of a new stablecoin. Tech-focused venture capital firm YZi Labs has increased its stake in Ethena, the stablecoin issuer behind USDe, which will assist the digital dollar’s adoption across decentralized and centralized platforms. The investment will assist Ethena USDe’s (USDe) expansion on BNB Chain while enabling Ethena to continue building its USDtb stablecoin and an institutional settlement layer, “Converge,” Changpeng Zhao’s YZi Labs said in a statement on Friday. USDtb is backed by short-duration treasury assets, including BlackRock's BUIDL, while Converge is an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible chain focused on tokenizing real-world assets. The move supports YZi’s mission to “support open, scalable digital dollar infrastructures that can serve as a backbone of efficiency and liquidity for the entire financial ecosystem.” Read more
Ethena has partnered with Flowdesk to boost USDe and USDtb access, as USDe surpasses $14 billion in market cap and becomes the third-largest stablecoin. The rapid growth of the Ethena stablecoin ecosystem continued on Friday as Ethena Labs announced a partnership with institutional OTC desk Flowdesk, aimed at expanding access to its two tokens — USDe and USDtb. Flowdesk, whose clients include token issuers, hedge funds and exchanges, will support trading and reward programs tied to both stablecoins, the companies said. USDe is Ethena’s synthetic dollar, backed mainly by crypto assets and stabilized through a delta-neutral hedging strategy that keeps its value pegged to $1. Read more
Prediction markets now overwhelmingly favor Native Markets, but questions about credibility linger as the vote approaches. Ethena, the team behind the USDe synthetic dollar protocol, withdrew its bid to issue Hyperliquid’s USDH stablecoin, conceding to concerns raised in direct discussions with community members and validators. In a X statement Thursday, the Ethena team acknowledged pushback over not being a Hyperliquid-native project and said it would step aside, congratulating rival Native Markets, now viewed as the frontrunner in the race. “While some are complaining about their [Native Markets] lack of credibility I think their success here perfectly embodies everything which is so special about Hyperliquid and their community,” wrote Ethena Labs founder Guy Young, adding: Read more
Mega Matrix is betting big on Ethena, positioning itself as the first public proxy for the ecosystem as stablecoin regulation heats up. Public holding company Mega Matrix (MPU) has made the Ethena stablecoin ecosystem the centerpiece of its digital asset strategy, betting that the synthetic dollar project can capture market share from incumbents like Circle. The company’s push comes on the heels of the US GENIUS Act, a comprehensive stablecoin bill that establishes federal oversight of issuers, sets capital and liquidity requirements and creates a framework for banks and fintechs to issue dollar-pegged tokens under regulatory supervision. However, Circle is currently the only publicly traded option to capitalize on the enormous growth of stablecoins, Colin Butler, Mega Matrix’s executive vice president and global head of markets, told Cointelegraph. Read more