Ethena USDe
USDE#21ENA is the governance token of Ethena, the protocol behind the synthetic dollar USDe.
- Market cap
- $4.9B
- Volume 24h
- $25.05M
- All-time high
- —
- Circulating supply
- 4.9B
Fails our Shariah screening. Needs caution: interest (riba), nature of the asset, excessive uncertainty (gharar), and benefit and harm (maslahah). Fails: business model and usage.
- 2 pass
- 4 caution
- 2 fail
Verdict history
- Not halalCurrent
First publication
Fundamentals, market picture and news will appear here.
Halal analysis
Can a Muslim hold Ethena USDe?8 Shariah criteria
2 pass · 4 caution · 2 failHolding ENA pays nothing today, but an approved fee switch will direct revenue that includes interest to ENA buybacks once USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion.
Riba means interest or any guaranteed increase on a loan. Simply holding ENA earns nothing, and Ethena's docs describe sENA (staked ENA) as a route to governance, not as a share of revenue. The link to interest is indirect but real. Ethena's revenue includes interest paid by borrowers in DeFi lending markets such as Aave and Morpho, interest on loans to institutions, and yields on tokenised short-term government debt.
On 2 September 2026 ENA holders approved a fee switch: when USDe circulating supply reaches $7.5 billion, a share of protocol revenue starting at 5% of gross revenue (rising to 20% at $20 billion) is to be directed to buying ENA on the market, and 95% of the net revenue the Ethena Foundation receives from its business lines (USDe savings, whitelabel stablecoins and Ethena [X]) is to go to such buybacks. USDe supply was about $4.9 billion on 27 September 2026, so the mechanism was not yet active. Because ENA's future value accrual is designed to come partly from interest income, but no interest reaches holders today, this is caution rather than fail.
ENA is a working governance token of a large protocol, but its only function is to govern that protocol, and official bodies disagree on whether crypto is property (mal).
Mal is property that Islamic law recognises as having value and that can be owned and traded. ENA has a real function: holders vote on the composition of USDe backing, new backing strategies, the future use of protocol revenue and the members of the Risk Committee, and the protocol it governs held about $5.4 billion in late September 2026. It has no other use such as paying network fees.
Malaysia's Securities Commission Shariah Advisory Council (2020), for assets under its supervision, treats digital currency without an underlying asset as goods ('urudh) that may be traded on registered exchanges. Other tier-1 bodies disagree: Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2017), the UAE General Authority of Islamic Affairs (2018), Turkey's Diyanet (2017) and Indonesia's MUI (2021) prohibit dealing in cryptocurrencies, and the OIC Fiqh Academy (2019) deferred a ruling. None of them names Ethena. The general dispute is reflected in confidence; the criterion is caution for a reason specific to ENA: its only function and value rest on governing a single business that Islamic Finance Guru (IFG), the authoritative source for Ethena, rates impermissible.
ENA is not a gambling token, though about 89% of its trading is in perpetual futures.
Maysir is gambling: winning or losing by chance rather than through productive exchange. Ordinary price swings are not maysir, and ENA has no chance-based payout. The market around it is highly speculative, though. On 27 September 2026 perpetual futures made up about 89% of ENA/USDT trading volume on Binance, Bybit and OKX (about $556 million of futures against $66 million of spot, a single-day snapshot). ENA's price has swung widely: it fell about 95% from its high of $1.52 in April 2024 to about $0.07 on 30 June 2026 and has since risen to about $0.27.
The protocol's main income also depends on speculators: funding on perpetual futures is paid by traders who want leveraged long exposure. The protocol's reliance on futures funding is weighed under business model, not again here. ENA itself has no gambling mechanics and has a real governance function, so futures dominance lowers the score only within pass.
Almost all of Ethena's revenue comes from perpetual futures funding, lending interest and government-debt yields, far above the 5% threshold for impermissible income.
This criterion asks how the issuer or protocol earns, and whether any of that income is impermissible. Ethena's docs list four revenue sources: funding and basis on delta-neutral trades, where spot assets are hedged with short perpetual futures and futures in crypto, tokenised commodities and, since September 2026, tokenised US shares; interest from overcollateralised loans in DeFi markets such as Aave and Morpho and to institutions; yields on tokenised real-world assets such as government debt and credit; and rewards on liquid stablecoin holdings.
Under AAOIFI Shariah Standard 20, futures and perpetual contracts are impermissible (deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage), and lending interest and government-debt yields are riba. Together these make up essentially all of the protocol's revenue, far above the 5% threshold. That revenue funds sUSDe rewards, partner payouts and incentives for leveraged positions on Aave, and under the fee switch approved in September 2026 part of it will fund ENA buybacks. The exact split between the four sources is not published in a way that could be checked, but no permissible source of meaningful size is described. IFG, the authoritative source for Ethena, rates both ENA and USDe impermissible because the system relies on short futures positions.
Supply and vesting are public, but the protocol relies on off-chain custodians, exchanges and Ethena-controlled keys, and governance votes draw very low turnout.
Gharar is excessive uncertainty or hidden information in a deal. Some things are clear: ENA's supply is fixed at 15 billion, about 10.1 billion were circulating on 27 September 2026, and team and investor tokens vest monthly until about March 2028 on a published schedule. Ethena publishes a transparency dashboard and custodian attestations. But much of the system is off-chain and depends on trust.
Backing assets are held with off-exchange custodians while hedges sit on centralised exchanges; the owner and admin roles of the minting contract are Ethena multisigs, the 20 minter and redeemer keys are controlled by Ethena, and direct minting is limited to approved market makers. Ethena's own docs say fully on-chain governance is not practical, so most decisions are delegated to a Risk Committee. The fee switch passed with about 17.8 million ENA from 88 voters, under 0.2% of circulating supply, and ten Ethereum addresses held about 60% of all ENA. Continuing unlocks and a changing backing mix add further uncertainty.
ENA's only use is to govern a protocol whose main product is a dollar yield built on futures funding and interest.
This criterion looks at what the asset is actually used for. ENA is used to vote on Ethena's parameters: which assets back USDe, which lending venues and futures strategies it uses, how revenue is shared, and who sits on the Risk Committee. The protocol's main products are USDe and sUSDe, a savings token whose rewards come from perpetual futures funding, lending interest and government-debt yields, as well as whitelabel stablecoins and the Ethena Pay savings app, which offered a 6% dollar savings rate at launch in September 2026.
Recent governance decisions include lending USDe backing into Aave (2025) and the fee switch (2026). Since the main purpose of the token is to steer an interest- and derivatives-based yield business, this criterion fails.
Fully paid spot ENA is widely available and can be held in one's own wallet.
This criterion asks whether the asset can be owned in a permissible way. ENA trades spot, with full payment and delivery, on major exchanges such as Binance, Bybit and OKX, and it can be withdrawn to a self-custody wallet on Ethereum and other supported chains. Ownership therefore does not depend on derivatives or leveraged wrappers, even though most ENA trading volume is in futures. Whether owning the asset is acceptable at all is decided by the other criteria; this one gets the full score.
Ethena offers dollar access outside banks, but its model rewards and encourages leverage, and USDe supply fell by about two thirds after the October 2025 crash.
Maslahah weighs public benefit against harm. The benefit Ethena claims is a dollar that does not rely on bank deposits, plus savings and payment products for people outside the banking system. The harms are notable. The yield exists because other traders pay to hold leveraged positions, and part of the revenue is used to reward leveraged positions on Aave; when many users borrowed against sUSDe to 'loop' the yield, the 10 October 2025 market liquidation triggered heavy redemptions, and USDe supply fell from about $15 billion in early October 2025 to about $8.5 billion a month later and about
$4.9 billion by September 2026. Speculative trading of ENA itself is counted under maysir, not again here.
How you can use it
Tap a card for the ruling and sourcesSpot ENA with full payment is widely available, but spot is acceptable only for HALAL or DOUBTFUL assets, and ENA is rated HARAM.
No spot ENA exchange-traded fund was verified. Any exchange-traded product holding ENA would carry the asset's own HARAM rating and would need its structure checked for lending or borrowing.
ENA is a governance token and is not used for payments in practice. Tier-1 bodies such as Indonesia's MUI rule that using cryptocurrency as currency is not permissible, and paying with crypto is banned in Turkey and not allowed in Indonesia.
Staking ENA as sENA is not payment for validating a network. Its value accrual is tied to a protocol whose revenue comes from futures funding and interest, and the approved fee switch will direct part of that revenue to ENA buybacks. Staking USDe as sUSDe, which pays out that revenue directly, also fails.
Margin trading in ENA is never acceptable: it is a deferred exchange with borrowed money and leverage (AAOIFI SS 20).
ENA futures and perpetual contracts are about 89% of its trading volume, but futures, perpetuals and options always fail under AAOIFI SS 20: deferred exchange without delivery, usually with leverage.
Lending ENA on DeFi markets or through exchange lending programmes pays interest from borrowers. This is riba.
ENA yield products built on lending, leveraged looping or basis trading pay interest or interest-like returns and fail.
Scholars quotes
Penggunaan cryptocurrency sebagai mata uang hukumnya haram, karena mengandung gharar (ketidakjelasan), dharar (bahaya) dan bertentangan dengan Undang-Undang nomor 7 tahun 2011 tentang Mata Uang dan Peraturan Bank Indonesia nomor 17 tahun 2015 tentang Kewajiban Penggunaan Rupiah di Wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.Bitcoin is a digital currency that does not meet the legal and Sharia criteria that make it a currency subject to the rulings of dealing with official legal currencies recognized internationally.بناءً على ذلك: فلا يجوز شرعًا تداول عملة "البتكوين" والتعامل من خلالها بالبيعِ والشراءِ والإجارةِ وغيرها، بل يُمنع من الاشتراكِ فيها؛ لعدمِ اعتبارِها كوسيطٍ مقبولٍ للتبادلِ من الجهاتِ المخُتصَّةِ، ولِمَا تشتمل عليه من الضررِ الناشئ عن الغررِ والجهالةِ والغشِّ في مَصْرِفها ومِعْيارها وقِيمتها، فضلًا عما تؤدي إليه ممارستُها من مخاطرَ عاليةٍ على الأفراد والدول.Holding ENA is rated as Haram.According to research and opinion of experts so far, cryptocurrency is not considered ‘ maal ’ (wealth) in Sharia.Sebagaimana mata wang yang lain, mata wang digital hendaklah tidak digunakan sebagai bayaran kepada barangan, perkhidmatan dan aktiviti tidak patuh Syariah seperti pembelian dadah, pelacuran, perjudian dan pendanaan aktiviti keganasan serta penggubahan wang haram.The SAC has also resolved that investment and trading of Digital Assets that fulfil the above requirements and which are traded on Digital Asset Exchange (DAX) registered with SC are permissible.Third: In light of the above and given the significant risks associated with this type of currencies and the instability of their transactions, the Council of the Academy recommends pursuing research and studies on issues affecting its ruling.Muhammadiyah memandang transaksi dan investasi kripto pada dasarnya mubah (boleh) tetapi dengan syarat tertentu.The opinion on this is the same as doing the same with any halal assets such as shares – 1) is permissible, 2) is more debatable and there are differing opinions on short-term trading.Our current position is 'tawaquf'; we can't say it is halal or haram, but we say it is better not to engage in itAs I mentioned at the beginning of this article it is not necessary to substantiate the permissibility of something as long as there are no prohibited factors involved in it or surrounding it.AI-assisted analysis checked against sources. Not a fatwa or investment advice.
Where it trades
Section in preparation
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Halal verdict, same category
