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USDe
USDe is Ethena's synthetic dollar backed 1:1 by stablecoins and crypto assets. It is fully hedged through delta-neutral positions to maintain peg stability while enabling scalable onchain liquidity.
- Ethereum
- Market Cap: $12.2B
- Fully Diluted Valluation: $12.2B
- FDV / MC: 1
- Ranking inside Exponential (among stables): #3
- Circulating Supply: 12,229,081,595
- Total Supply: 12,229,081,595
- Volume (24H): $287.9M
- ATH: $1.03 (12/20/2023)
- ATL: $0.93 (10/04/2024)
USDe is a mid-cap, fully collateralized asset. This asset depends on multiple centralized entities for custody services and for hedging its collateral exposure. This asset is exposed to the underlying risks of Ethena, a protocol rated as Good.
USDe is a stablecoin that trades within 10bps of its peg to USD, which makes it a great store of value.
USDe does not have a supply schedule. USDe on Ethereum utilizes BTC, ETH, LSTs and stablecoins as collateral, held by custodians to back its value. To maintain peg stability, Ethena employs a delta-neutral strategy by opening equivalent short positions on centralized exchanges (CEXs), mitigating price fluctuations in the underlying collateral.
How does USDe stay pegged?
USDe maintains its peg using a delta-neutral strategy. When a user mints USDe with assets like BTC, ETH, stablecoins and liquid staking tokens, the protocol opens an equivalent short perpetual futures position on a derivatives exchange. This offsets any price changes in the backing assets, so gains or losses on the spot side are matched by opposite moves in the short position. Around half of USDe’s collateral is held in stablecoins, with the rest in crypto assets hedged via short perps. This mix shifts dynamically.
Where does Ethena’s yield come from?
Ethena earns revenue from three main sources: funding and basis spreads on its short perpetual futures positions, rewards from liquid stablecoin deposits, and staking rewards from assets like ETH. The funding rate income is the largest contributor, benefiting from the persistent demand to go long in crypto derivatives markets. In 2024, BTC funding rates averaged ~11% and ETH ~12.6%, helping drive sUSDe’s ~18% average APY. Stablecoin reserves, diversified across USDtb (~50%), USDC (~35%), and others, can also generate yield when deposited with institutional custodians like Coinbase.
How can you turn USDe into a high-yield position?
Holding USDe itself does not earn rewards. To access Ethena’s yield, users can stake USDe to receive sUSDe, the reward-accruing version of the asset. sUSDe holders earn a share of the protocol’s revenue streams, primarily funding rate income, staking rewards, and stablecoin yields, with returns fluctuating based on market conditions and the protocol’s collateral mix. Most of the crypto portion of the backing (~55% of total collateral) is held off-exchange with custodians like Copper and Ceffu, while over 95% of stablecoin reserves remain off-exchange or on-chain, reducing direct exchange exposure.
