ENA

Ethena

Stablecoin

A synthetic dollar paid by funding rates; ENA now has a fee switch, but USDe must grow ~58% before it pays.

Recovering, unproven v1.1 · as of 2026-10-20 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Ethena issues USDe, the largest synthetic dollar, but the October 2025 crash and weak funding rates cut its supply from $14.7B to about $3.9B by July 2026, and ENA fell 86% from its 12-month high. In late August the Foundation bought out selling seed investors, ended investor unlocks and passed a fee switch; ENA nearly quadrupled from its July low before giving back part of it. The catch: buybacks only start once USDe averages $7.5B (now ~$4.8B), and team unlocks of ~$220M a year at today's price still outweigh anything the token receives.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$0.1963
+3.8% 24h · −11% 30d · CoinGecko 20 Oct
Market cap
$2.63B
rank #41 · FDV $2.94B
24h volume
$382.0M
14.5% of market cap
From ATH
−87%
ATH $1.52, Apr 2024
2026 YTD
−2%
$0.2000 → $0.1963
USDe supply
~$4.8B
12 Oct 2026; peak $14.7B on 9 Oct 2025

The last 12 months

$0.25$0.5$0.75Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNov2025-10-27: $0.509$0.51 peak2026-07-02: $0.0712$0.07 low2026-09-28: $0.2722$0.272026-10-20: $0.1962$0.201Crash, USDe depegs on Binance2USDe supply down to $6.3B3StablecoinX lists on Nasdaq4Year low at $0.0715Seed investors bought out6Ethena Pay beta on Avalanche7Fee switch vote passes8Last investor unlock9Team unlock ~94M ENA10Ethena Pay in US, UK, EU
MarketAdoptionTokenomicsProductGovernanceUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 21 Oct 2025 to 20 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    10 Oct 25 Crash, USDe depegs on Binance. USDe briefly trades near $0.65 on Binance in the record liquidation day; ~$2B is redeemed in 24 hours while minting and redemption keep working.
  2. 2
    09 Dec 25 USDe supply down to $6.3B. Net outflows of ~$8.3B in two months as funding rates collapse after the crash, from $14.7B on 9 Oct.
  3. 3
    25 Jun 26 StablecoinX lists on Nasdaq. ENA treasury company closes its TLGY merger and trades as USDE with ~3.03B ENA, about 20% of supply.
  4. 4
    02 Jul 26 Year low at $0.071. ENA bottoms as USDe supply sinks to ~$3.9B and the 7-day sUSDe yield sits near 3.8%.
  5. 5
    27 Aug 26 Seed investors bought out. Foundation buys locked tokens of large selling seed investors, ends monthly investor unlocks and moves value accrual from Labs to the Foundation.
  6. 6
    01 Sep 26 Ethena Pay beta on Avalanche. Self-custodial savings and card app opens in stages across 48 countries, without the US and EU.
  7. 7
    02 Sep 26 Fee switch vote passes. ENA buybacks from protocol revenue approved, but only once USDe averages $7.5B over 14 days.
  8. 8
    05 Oct 26 Last investor unlock. Final ~1.41B ENA investor release, days after ENA rewards for USDe ended on 30 Sep.
  9. 9
    02 Nov 26 Team unlock ~94M ENA. Next scheduled core-contributor tranche per Tokenomist; trackers differ on the size.
  10. 10
    Soon Ethena Pay in US, UK, EU. Guy Young said on 14 Sep these markets could open within three to four weeks; not confirmed yet.

How a dollar becomes USDe and earns yield

Minter
Deposits USDT or ETH

Whitelisted minters send collateral; most users simply buy USDe on a DEX.

Ethena
Mints USDe 1:1

Collateral sits with off-exchange custodians, mirrored onto exchanges.

Exchanges
Opens a short perp

Short perpetual futures offset the collateral's price exposure (delta-neutral).

Market
Longs pay funding

Funding plus staking or T-bill yield is the income; in weak markets it shrinks.

sUSDe
Stakers get the yield

Yield flows to staked USDe; a reserve fund covers negative funding.

Redeemer
Burns USDe

Hedge is closed and collateral returned; ~$2B left this way on 10–11 Oct 2025.

Where ENA comes in: nowhere in the mint, hedge or redeem steps. USDe is minted and burned; ENA is governance and sENA staking. It only gains a claim on this flow through the fee-switch buybacks, which stay switched off until USDe averages $7.5B.

Usage and adoption

USD per 12 months: fees and token value capture vs ENA released
Fees paid by USDe (gross, annualised)
~$245M
Revenue kept by the protocol
~$2M
Buybacks if armed at $7.5B USDe
~$16M
ENA unlocked, last 12 months
~$650M
Team unlocks, next 12 months
~$221M

Fees and kept revenue: DefiLlama annualised figures, Oct 2026; nearly all fees pass to sUSDe holders and the reserve. Buybacks: Q3 2026 gross protocol revenue of $53.6M (~$214M a year) scaled to $7.5B supply, times 5%; an estimate. Unlocked: ~171.9M ENA a month from Nov 2025 to Sep 2026, ~94M on 2 Oct and ~1.41B on 5 Oct, valued at each day's price (~3.4B ENA, ~$650M; part of it went to the Foundation's buyout). Next 12 months: ~94M a month at $0.196. Buybacks today: zero.

  • strong signal
    Fees (gross)
    ~$245M / yr

    DefiLlama annualised, Oct 2026. Real funding and staking yield, but passed on to sUSDe holders.

  • weak signal
    Revenue kept
    ~$2M / yr

    DefiLlama protocol revenue. What ENA could capture today is close to nothing.

  • medium signal
    USDe supply
    ~$4.76B

    12 Oct 2026, 101.4% backed. −68% from $14.7B on 9 Oct 2025; low ~$3.9B in July.

  • medium signal
    sUSDe yield
    5.0% (7-day)

    End Sep 2026, up from 3.8% in July. Staked USDe fell to $1.26B, 26% of supply.

  • medium signal
    USDtb supply
    ~$775M

    30 Jun 2026 reserve report; ~99% in BlackRock BUIDL. Regulated, but low-margin.

Ethena has real paid usage, but it flows to sUSDe holders, not ENA. The scoreboard is USDe's 14-day average against $7.5B: below it the token receives nothing, while ~94M ENA a month still unlocks.

Project

What it is
Ethena issues USDe, a synthetic dollar backed by crypto and stablecoin collateral hedged with short perpetual futures. Staked USDe (sUSDe) passes on funding and staking yield. A second dollar, USDtb, is backed mostly by BlackRock's BUIDL fund and issued by Anchorage Digital under the GENIUS Act.
Team
Founded in 2023 by Guy Young (ex-Cerberus Capital). Ethena Labs builds the products; an August 2026 agreement moved protocol IP and value accrual from Labs to the token-governed Ethena Foundation.
Differentiation
Runs the crypto basis trade at stablecoin scale, with collateral held off-exchange. Yield moves with funding rates: the 7-day sUSDe rate rose from 3.8% to 5.0% in Q3 2026, far below 2024 levels. In weak funding, backing shifts into Treasury-backed stablecoins.
Traction
USDe fell from $14.7B (9 Oct 2025) to ~$3.9B in July 2026, then recovered to $4.94B at end-Sep and ~$4.76B on 12 Oct. Fees run at ~$245M a year (DefiLlama). USDtb ~$775M (30 Jun 2026). Ethena Pay app in beta since 1 Sep.
Competitors
Sky (USDS, sUSDS), tokenized Treasury funds, other yield-bearing and synthetic dollars, and exchanges' own yield products on USDT and USDC.
Key risks
Low or negative funding shrinks yield and supply; exchange and custodian risk (USDe briefly hit ~$0.65 on Binance on 10 Oct 2025); almost all fees go to sUSDe holders, not ENA; buybacks need USDe to grow ~58% first.
Roadmap
Ethena Pay to open in the US, UK and Europe (Guy Young said 'within weeks' on 14 Sep); Converge, the RWA chain with Securitize, is still pre-mainnet with no firm date; fee-switch buybacks arm at a 14-day average of $7.5B USDe.

Token performance

1-year return (21 Oct 2025 → 20 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
ENA
-57%
BTC
-25%
ETH
-38%

ENA has no 3-year record: it launched on 2 Apr 2024 and traded roughly between $0.60 and $0.90 in its first days, so at $0.20 it is down roughly 70% to 80% since launch (researched by hand, approximate). Over the same 3 years as the other pages, BTC is ~+179% (from ~$29.7k) and ETH ~+53% (from ~$1.6k). 3-year figures are manual because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.07 low (2 Jul) to $0.27 high (28 Sep), daily closes; now $0.20, −1.9% YTD
12-month drawdown
−86%, from $0.51 (27 Oct 2025) to $0.071 (2 Jul 2026); then +282% to the September high
Liquidity
$382M traded in 24h, 14.5% of market cap; rank #41
Relative strength
−57% in a year vs BTC −25% and ETH −38.5%; the Aug to Sep rally came from the investor buyout and fee-switch vote, not from USDe growth
ATH check ATH check passed. The $1.52 high (11 Apr 2024) came nine days after launch, but ENA came back to roughly $1.30 in Dec 2024, within 50% of it, so the ATH is used as the reference (the Dec 2024 level is approximate and not taken from a dated source).

Tokenomics

Supply
15B ENA maximum, ~13.41B circulating (89%). Market cap $2.63B, FDV $2.94B.
Emissions
No minting beyond the cap. ENA rewards paid to USDe users (over $750M in total) fell ~85% since 2024 and ended on 30 Sep 2026.
Unlocks
Monthly investor vesting ended with a final ~1.41B ENA release on 5 Oct 2026. The ~1.59B still locked is core-contributor stock, ~94M a month until about early 2028 (estimate from the schedule).
Utility
Governance and staking as sENA. ENA is not used to mint or redeem USDe. Converge plans ENA-staked validators, but the chain is not live.
Concentration
StablecoinX (Nasdaq: USDE) holds ~3.0B ENA, ~20% of supply. The Foundation bought out locked tokens of large seed investors who had been selling (terms undisclosed); team allocation remains locked.
Sinks
Fee switch passed on 2 Sep 2026: at a $7.5B USDe average, 5% of gross protocol revenue goes to the Foundation, 95% of which buys ENA, rising to ~20% at $20B (reports differ slightly). Not active yet; no burn.

Bull case

Funding rates rise in a stronger market, sUSDe yields climb well above the current ~5%, and USDe grows from ~$4.8B past the $7.5B trigger, so buybacks start. Ethena Pay opens in the US and Europe and ENA reclaims the $0.27 September high.

Bear case

Funding stays thin and USDe stalls below $5B, so the fee switch never arms while ~94M ENA a month unlocks. Another exchange-driven depeg hits confidence; ENA loses the ~$0.14 mid-September floor and heads back toward the $0.07 July low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • USDe 14-day average supply vs the $7.5B buyback trigger
  • sUSDe 7-day yield and BTC/ETH perp funding rates
  • Monthly team unlock (~94M ENA) and Ethena Pay US/EU opening
  • $0.27 September high and the ~$0.14 mid-September floor

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

ENA against EUR · USD

24h $6.21M · ±2% depth $820.4k

OKXlisted

ENA against EUR · USDT · USDC · TRY

24h $11.6M · ±2% depth $973.4k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceENA/USDT$51.3M$1.73M
MEXCENA/USDT$41.4M$687.0k
BybitENA/USDT$28.9M$895.9k
BitgetENA/USDT$21.1M$522.8k
UpbitENA/KRW$16.6M$1.35M

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
Uniswap V3CLENA/WETH · Ethereum$3.53M$127.1k
MeteoraENA/USDC · Solana$439.1k$4.59k
Aerodrome SlipStreamCLENA/WETH · Base$139.4k$3.11k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all ENA volume: 0.6%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

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