TL;DR
- Idea: Synthetic dollar protocol offering USDe stablecoin and sUSDe yield-bearing instruments via delta-hedging strategies
- Catalyst: Launch of iUSDe bridging into traditional finance, Telegram savings/payments app, Ethereal and Derive ecosystem products, strong TVL growth and institutional backing
- Risks: Exposure to funding rate reversals, counterparty and regulatory risks, complexity and reliance on off-chain hedging
- Score: 7.00/ 10
Coin
- Name/ Ticker: Ethena (ENA)
- Segment: DeFi/Synthetic Dollar
- Status: active
- Price: $0.737600
Key Metrics
- Market Cap: $4 884 478 301
- FDV: $11 060 000 000
- Circulating Supply: 6 621 875 000
- Total Supply: 15 000 000 000
Sources
Technology
- USP: First crypto-native synthetic dollar (USDe) backed by delta-neutral hedging of staked ETH
- Core Technology: Smart contracts mint USDe via overcollateralization and off-chain delta hedging using perpetual futures, with on-chain USDe staking to generate sUSDe yield
Roadmap
- 2025-02-24: iUSDe launch for traditional finance
- 2025-03-01: Telegram savings and payments app release
- 2025-02-20: Ethereal perpetual & spot exchange testnet
- 2025-02-28: Derive on-chain options token launch
- 2025-05-01: Converge network testnet go-live
Team & Investors
Team
- Founder & CEO β Guy Young: 6 years investing at Cerberus Capital Management
- Founding Advisor β Arthur Hayes: Co-founder & former CEO of BitMEX
- Product Manager β Elliot Parker: Director at Tradeparadigm & Community Manager at Deribit
- Head of Full Stack Engineering β Brian Grosso: Engineer at Capital One, BeamQL
- Head of Growth β Seraphim Czecker: Head of Risk at Euler Labs, DeFi expansion at Lido
- General Counsel β Zach Rosenberg: Legal at PwC
Investors
- Franklin Templeton β private sale β’ 2025-02-24
- Polychain Capital β private sale β’ 2025-02-24
- Pantera Capital β private sale β’ 2025-02-24
- Dragonfly Capital β private sale β’ 2025-02-24
- F-Prime Capital β private sale β’ 2025-02-24
Total funding: $100.00M
Tokenomics
- Utility: Governance token for protocol parameters, staking for yield, fee discounts and participation in Ethena ecosystem
- Vesting: 25% unlocked at token generation; remaining supply vesting linearly over 7 years
Pros & Cons
Strengths
- High TVL of $9.96B anchoring deep liquidity
- Robust institutional funding from top-tier investors
- Innovative delta-neutral synthetic stablecoin mechanism
- Expanding ecosystem with iUSDe, Ethereal and Derive
- Strong revenue generation and protocol fees
- Integration across CeFi and DeFi platforms
- Clear roadmap to bridge crypto and traditional finance
Weaknesses
- Dependence on perpetual futures funding rates
- Rapidly declining yields raising sustainability concerns
- Counterparty and operational risks in off-chain hedging
- Regulatory uncertainty for institutional wrapper iUSDe
- Complex protocol design may hinder mainstream adoption
- Protocol has yet to be stress-tested in a full market downturn
- High concentration of collateral in ETH derivatives
Market Signals (7d)
- TVL trend: up 10%
Price Scenarios (target: 2026-02-10)
How to Buy & Store
CEX
- Binance
- Coinbase
- Kraken
- KuCoin
- Bybit
DEX
- Uniswap
- SushiSwap
- Curve Finance
- 1inch
- Balancer
Storage
- MetaMask
- Ledger
- Trust Wallet
- Coinbase Wallet
- Trezor
Verdict
Ethena is a pioneering synthetic stablecoin protocol with strong institutional backing and robust TVL, but investors should monitor funding rate sustainability and regulatory developments. Recommended for risk-tolerant DeFi allocations.
Official Links
Source: Coin Research (internal)
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