Ethena Diversifies Yield Strategy Beyond Crypto

Ethena, the protocol behind the $4 billion 'synthetic dollar' USDe, is expanding its yield-generating strategy to equity perpetual futures. This move follows a decline in USDe supply from a peak near $15 billion to below $5 billion.

The expansion targets the booming leveraged stock trading market, where funding rates on equity perpetual futures averaged 14% on Hyperliquid and 17.5% on Binance over the past months, compared to low single digits for Bitcoin during the same period.

Ethena plans to announce its first exchange partners and deployments for the equity strategy in the coming weeks. The protocol expects real-world asset perpetuals to eclipse crypto derivatives in USDe backing within 12 to 24 months.