We are excited to announce the planned launch of a new stablecoin, UStb, which intends to invest its reserves in BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), tokenized by Securitize, the leader in the tokenization of real-world assets.

UStb will function identically to a traditional stablecoin and is expected to have its reserves invested in BUIDL, the token underlying Blackrock’s first-ever tokenized asset fund. Blackrock’s BUIDL fund invests in U.S. dollars, short-term U.S. Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements.

UStb will exist as a wholly independent product, offering users and exchange partners a new option for their stablecoin needs that carries a completely differentiated risk profile compared to USDe.

UStb can also help USDe better weather difficult market conditions. If deemed necessary and appropriate by Ethena’s governance, during periods of negative funding rates Ethena will be able to close the hedging positions underlying USDe and re-allocate its backing assets to UStb to further ameliorate related risks.

As part of our vision for UStb, we intend for the new stablecoin to be usable as an alternative to USDe as margin collateral on the centralized exchanges we have already partnered with to offer the use of USDe as margin collateral – including Bybit, Bitget, and any other exchanges that we work with in the future.

We look forward to sharing more information regarding the timing of the launch of UStb as well as its integration with exchanges in the coming weeks.