Ethena Taps Equity Market for Basis Trades with Potential Yields 5x Higher Than Bitcoin

Ethena is expanding its USDe synthetic dollar into equity perpetual-basis trades in an effort to target funding yields more than five times higher than Bitcoin's.

The move comes as Ethena seeks to restore basis trading, which has been impacted by falling crypto yields. The protocol plans to start deploying into equity-basis positions over the coming weeks through venues where it already executes crypto trades.

Ethena founder Guy Young stated that real-world asset perpetual volume exceeded half of crypto volume on Hyperliquid last month, while aggregate RWA perpetual volume on Binance reached roughly twice the volume of BTC-USDT. Young expects open interest and trading volume in the sector to surpass crypto perpetuals across major venues within roughly two years.

The expansion increases the pool of underlying assets available to Ethena's basis strategy from a crypto market worth about $2.5 trillion to more than $120 trillion of equities.