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Summary

This post introduces Ethena Network, a synergistic win-win-win initiative between Ethena, builders, and users that drives USDe adoption forward while empowering builders by improving protocol economics and go-to-market strategy via USDe.

We see USDe as an incredibly powerful and unique primitive for builders to unlock new financial primitives, bringing support from Ethena's liquidity / capital, integrations funnel, and network effect.

Ethena Today

Ethena launched in December 2023, and since then USDe quickly became the fastest growing USD-pegged asset to reach $3 billion in supply, reaching that milestone in under 100 days.

This growth was driven by over 250,000 users and integrations with protocols like Aave, Morpho, Maker/Sky, Pendle LayerZero, EigenLayer, Symbiotic, Curve and others. USDe is also now deeply integrated into major ecosystems outside of Ethereum mainnet, including Arbitrum, Solana, Base, Mantle, Blast, and more.

Centralized exchanges have also begun to adopt Ethena and USDe, with collateral integrations on ByBit and Bitget. In less than a month, USDe supply surpassed USDC on Bybit.

Ethena has also withstood significant market corrections, reductions in open interest, and negative funding rate environments while maintaining peg within roughly 20 basis points all throughout its lifespan. The protocol has thus far proven resilient amidst a variety of market conditions.

sUSDe has produced 16.8% APR in 2024, producing a structurally higher reward profile than any other asset in the space at multi-billion dollar scale.

The Holy Grail: Internet Money Powered by Ethena

While BTC and ETH have become collateral, all DeFi apps run on dollars. Dollars remain the lifeblood of DeFi and on-chain flows. Through USDe, there exists now a new crypto-native monetary primitive. The natural extension is to build an economy around and network around the primitive.

DeFi innovation has been lacking zero-to-one innovations, with most protocols converging toward similar base mechanisms, user experience, and design. Observe the dozens of DEXes, derivatives, lending protocols ultimately coming to the same conclusions on product. DeFi as a result has become boring and returns have been subpar for most users.

But it does not necessarily need to be this way. Powerful new DeFi primitives can exist and be built on top of USDe, and can be further empowered by the broader network effects of building on and with Ethena.

The Ethena Network will be a platform to power the best apps, networks, and builders of the on-chain future.

A prediction market with millions of users, a DEX with hundreds of millions or billions in TVL, a consumer-first mobile savings account, undercollateralized lending, interest rate derivatives, structured products, and more can all be powered by Ethena and USDe.

Build With Ethena

Ethena Network is an initiative set up to establish deep and synergistic relationships between the builders of the future and Ethena-aligned parties, including Ethena Labs and its stakeholders.

Builders part of the program will receive first-class treatment and support in getting USDe integrated into their protocols, support on go-to-market strategy, access to >250k existing Ethena users, connections with investors, market makers and liquidity providers.

More specifically, there are four verticals where Ethena Network participants can seek to benefit:

• Liquidity

  • Ethena has $2.7 billion backing USDe consisting of delta-hedged crypto collateral and stablecoins. Subject to approval from the Ethena Risk Committee, this liquidity can potentially be deployed into secure protocols to bootstrap liquidity for example a new perpetual exchange or RWA product.

  • The rapid growth of USDe was powered by access to the most advanced capital allocators both within crypto and traditional finance. Ethena can align on incentives and strategies to onboard these capital allocators to your protocols with USDe.

• Integrations

  • Ethena has built deep relationships with the largest DeFi protocols across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Solana, Mantle, and other top networks. We can support streamlined access and connections with any of the apps Ethena is integrated with.

  • We have strong connectivity with the founders at most prominent upcoming chains including Monad, MegaETH, Initia, Berachain, Abstract, and Movement, and can accelerate conversations with these parties should you be seeking integrations and support there.

• Capital Access

Ethena has access to some of the best capital allocators in the industry. Many have expressed interest in continuing to support Ethena by deploying into Ethena-powered applications, especially those participating in this program.

• TradFi: Fidelity, Franklin Templeton

• Exchanges: Binance, ByBit, OKX, Kraken and Deribit

• VCs: Dragonfly, Delphi, Nascent, Arthur Hayes Maelstrom

• Leading market makers

• Platform Support

  • Tap into Ethena’s brand and human capital to help with GTM strategy, protocol and product design, marketing, and brand building.

Working closely with Ethena means gaining access to our network, which spans the best DeFi founders, angel investors, activist venture investors, exchanges, and liquidity providers and market makers who help bootstrap growth in the initial zero to one phase.

The first case study in this program is Ethereal, the first member of the Ethena Network.

Ethereal is a perpetual exchange being built on and around Ethena by long-time DeFi builders from Synthetix and other premier protocols. Ethereal is receiving support from Ethena up and down the stack, with synergies across liquidity, fundraising, go-to-market, protocol design, and connectivity with CEXes and market makers.

With perpetual exchanges reaching the converging on product and asset availability, Ethena can provide Ethereal significant edge by bootstrapping liquidity via its hedging flows, unique existing userbase, and relationships with institutions to drive forward its market share.

Equally, Ethereal will be built entirely on USDe as natively rewarding collateral within the exchange which will act as a supply sink for dollars as it grows.

You can read more about Ethereal here.

What’s Next

This is just an introduction to what will be the next phase of Ethena’s growth onchain.

We’re excited to continue our push to be at the edge of DeFi integrations and to drive USDe adoption forward.

If you’re a builder interested in joining the Ethena Network, please reach out to us here! We will shortly be sharing more information about core improvements to DeFi primitives that can be enabled by USDe and Ethena.

If you’re an Ethena user or prospective user, stay tuned to our Twitter / X for more information about apps we’re working closely with and how you can best use your Ethena-powered assets on chain.