Equity Perpetuals Outpace USDe Backing in Market Growth
USDe backing is entering a significant transition as equity perpetuals gain prominence over crypto markets. Equity perpetual futures have reached $6.2 billion in open interest across venues, exceeding USDe's $4.6 billion in backing assets. This shift marks a substantial increase from the initial launch of equity perps on Hyperliquid in December 2025 with $90 million in open interest.
By August 11, aggregate equity perpetual open interest had increased tenfold to $6.2 billion, driven largely by memory and AI hardware-related contracts. This growth presents an opportunity for USDe backing as the funding premiums paid by leveraged longs can be collected through a simple basis trade, holding the spot asset short the perpetual.
Historically, crypto funding has been less attractive compared to equity perps, with Bitcoin's funding rate averaging 2.2% year-to-date in contrast to Hyperliquid's 14% and Binance's 17.5%. The daily correlation between equity perpetual and crypto funding rates is also relatively low, indicating that the two markets are behaving independently.
Ethena estimates that applying a 2.5% perpetual-open-interest penetration to global equities could imply roughly $4 trillion in potential equity perpetual open interest, nearly 40 times larger than crypto's previous peak. However, USDe backing faces execution and custody challenges as it navigates this shift towards equity perps.