Ethena swaps its crypto yield appetite for equity perp dopamine 🎯

Ethena, the protocol behind the $4 billion synthetic dollar $USDe, plans to extend its basis-trading strategy into equity perpetual futures, betting that red-hot leveraged stock markets can deliver richer and more dependable returns than its home turf. Open interest in equity perps has climbed to $6.2 billion from less than $1 billion in March, and funding rates on those contracts have averaged roughly 14% on Hyperliquid and 17.5% on Binance in recent months, compared with low single digits for bitcoin, according to Ethena. The protocol said Friday it expects to name its first exchange partners and deployments for the equity strategy in the coming weeks, with real-world asset perpetuals projected to overtake crypto derivatives in $USDe backing within 12 to 24 months.

The move comes as Ethena searches for fresh sources of yield after $USDe supply slipped below $5 billion from a peak near $15 billion, and follows Thursday's $ENA token overhaul in which the Ethena Foundation unveiled revised token economics, eliminated monthly VC unlocks and opened a vote on directing revenues from Ethena businesses toward token buybacks. "One other interesting characteristic which makes this more attractive versus crypto is the natural positive skew of funding distribution," co-founder Guy Young said in an X post.

The mechanics mirror Ethena's original trade executed on assets such as bitcoin ($BTC, $79,389.75), ether ($ETH, $2,496.79) and solana ($SOL): hold the asset, short its perpetual contract and collect funding paid by leveraged long traders. That trade became less lucrative as crypto markets cooled, with Ethena noting bitcoin funding averaged 11% in 2024 and 4.9% in 2025 before falling to 2.2% this year through Aug. 11. Equity perps have moved in the opposite direction, posting positive funding on 94% of days on Hyperliquid and 97% on Binance once the markets reached meaningful scale, with a median rate of 13.9% versus 3.9% for bitcoin, according to Ethena.