Ethena USDe

ENA is the governance token of Ethena, the protocol behind the synthetic dollar USDe.

Ethena is a protocol that issues USDe, a synthetic dollar. Unlike USDT or USDC, USDe is not backed one-to-one by bank deposits. Ethena holds crypto (and now also tokenised commodities and shares) and opens an equal short position in perpetual futures, so price moves cancel out, plus stablecoins and tokenised short-term government debt. Holders who stake USDe receive sUSDe, which grows in value as Ethena passes on rewards from protocol revenue.

ENA is Ethena's governance token. It launched on 5 March 2024 with a fixed supply of 15 billion tokens, about 10.1 billion of which were in circulation on 27 September 2026. Team and investor tokens vest monthly until 2028 after a one-year cliff. ENA can be staked as sENA, which is mainly a route to governance; ENA holders elect the Risk Committee that sets backing and exposure limits.

Ethena's revenue comes from futures funding and basis, interest on loans to DeFi markets and institutions, yields on tokenised government debt and credit, and rewards on stablecoins. In September 2026 ENA holders approved a 'fee switch': once USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion, a share of revenue starting at 5% will be used to buy ENA on the market. USDe supply was about $4.9 billion in late September 2026, down from about $15 billion in October 2025, so the buybacks had not started.

Ethena Labs was founded by Guy Young. Minting and redeeming USDe directly is limited to approved market makers, and backing assets are held with off-exchange custodians while the hedges sit on centralised exchanges. In September 2026 Ethena launched a savings and payments app, Ethena Pay, and began hedging tokenised US shares with equity perpetuals on Binance.