Ethena is partnering with Binance to extend the basis trade backing USDe beyond crypto and into the much larger market for tokenized equities.
What's the Scoop?
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Basis trade goes TradFi:Ethena will begin backing USDe through delta-neutral equity trades, using tokenized stocks and perpetuals to collect funding payments. In theory, this structure expands Ethena's addressable underlying market from ~$2.5T in crypto assets to $150T+ in real-world assets.
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Why Binance:Binance comes equipped with both bStocks (tokenized spot collateral) and USDT-denominated equity perps, letting Ethena use one single venue for both sides of its trade. Further, eligible delta-neutral accounts like Ethena also receive lower priority for Binance's auto-deleveraging system, reducing the risk its strategy gets forcibly closed during market stress.
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Where it can break:Equity basis trades introduce a major wrinkle: U.S. stocks close while their tokenized versions and perpetuals keep trading. Ethena's Risk Committee calls this the strategy's "deepest structural risk" , since the perp can drift away from the underlying stock during off-hours, potentially weakening the hedge.
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Ethena momentum:The expansion comes as ENA has climbed roughly 60% over the past month, from ~$0.14 to ~$0.23. USDe supply sits around $4.9B, putting it closer to the recently approved fee switch's first trigger: a $7.5B 14-day average supply, at which point Ethena will begin directing a portion of protocol revenue toward ENA buybacks .
