Enter $Ethena’s USDe — crypto’s first fully-backed, onchain, scalable, and censorship-resistant synthetic dollar. It’s paired with sUSDe, a crypto-native, yield-generating asset backed by funding rates and perpetual futures.
📊 $Ethena is now the third-largest stablecoin issuer by market cap, offering a yield-bearing dollar-pegged token that intentionally avoids TradFi instruments like US Treasuries. Instead, it relies on a classic crypto strategy:
Long spot + short perpetual futures = collect the funding rate.
🔁 The backbone of this model?
A basis trade powered by perpetual futures, a derivative that thrives in crypto’s 24/7, high-volatility environment.
📈 As long as traders remain eager to go long — paying premiums to do so — $Ethena’s model remains not only sustainable but highly lucrative. In fact, as of January, 92% of $Ethena’s protocol revenue came from these funding and basis spreads.
