Ethena Diversifies USDe Yield with Equity Perps Expansion

Ethena is expanding its yield product, USDe, to include equity perpetuals (perps) as collateral backing. This move follows a significant growth in the RWA perps market, which has increased by 10x to $6B in Open Interest since March.

The protocol believes that this market could grow up to 100x bigger, offering scalable basis yield opportunities not tied to the cyclical crypto market. The underlying asset base of equity perps is over $150 trillion compared to approximately $2.5 trillion in the crypto market, making it a highly scalable extension.

Ethena founder Guy Young stated that they took a cautious approach to entering this nascent market and waited until it developed deeper liquidity before moving forward with the expansion.