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Ethena Targets 14%-17.5% Equity-Perp Funding as USDe Chases a $7.5 Billion Trigger

By Isaac • August 28, 2026 7:31 pm • Comments

Ethena is preparing to push the strategy behind USDe into a much larger market: equity-linked perpetual futures.

The potential attraction is easy to see. Recent funding rates in equity perpetuals have reportedly averaged about 14% on Hyperliquid and 17.5% on Binance, while Bitcoin perpetual funding averaged just 2.2% this year through August 11.

Funding can change fast, but the gap explains why Ethena is looking beyond the crypto basis trade that helped USDe grow in the first place.

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CryptoSlate reports that open interest in equity-linked perpetuals has climbed from less than $1 billion in March to roughly $6.2 billion, while Ethena founder Guy Young says real-world-asset perpetual volume exceeded half of crypto volume on Hyperliquid last month and aggregate RWA-perpetual volume on Binance reached about twice BTC-USDT volume. The report adds that Ethena plans to start deploying into equity-basis positions over the coming weeks through venues where it already trades crypto, opening its strategy to the more than $120 trillion equity market after the protocol waited for liquidity and trading history to deepen enough for a serious evaluation; Young expects the sector’s open interest and volume to surpass crypto perpetuals across major venues within roughly two years.

That forecast remains a company view, not an established market outcome. The immediate fact is narrower: equity perpetuals have become liquid enough for Ethena to begin testing positions through its existing execution system.

Why Ethena needs another yield engine.

USDe is not a conventional stablecoin backed only by cash in a bank. Ethena’s documentation explains that the product uses crypto collateral alongside short derivatives positions so the short side can offset much of the collateral’s price exposure while collecting funding when leveraged traders pay to stay long.

The design aims to keep the synthetic dollar relatively stable without forcing Ethena to sell all of the yield-producing crypto exposure behind it, but it also makes the economics sensitive to derivative-market conditions. When long demand is strong, funding can support attractive returns; when funding compresses or turns negative, the strategy has less income and may need other reserve allocations to maintain an appealing yield.

That tradeoff is central to understanding why the protocol is widening the set of markets it can use.

The Ethena Transparency Board shows a reserve mix that has already moved well beyond the original basis trade, with crypto-basis positions accounting for only about 13% of backing when CryptoSlate checked the dashboard. DeFi lending represented roughly $1.26 billion, liquid stablecoins about 32% of reserves, real-world assets 12.3% and institutional lending 11.8%, with reported yields ranging from roughly 3.1% for DeFi lending to as much as 7% for institutional credit.

Those allocations reduce dependence on a single source of funding, but they also show how far USDe has moved from the leverage-rich environment that powered its earlier growth. Equity perpetuals would give Ethena a way to rebuild the basis component without waiting for Bitcoin and Ethereum traders to bid funding rates back toward prior-cycle levels.

Equity perpetuals could restore a larger basis component without waiting for Bitcoin and Ethereum leverage to heat up again. Ethena’s strategy announcement says the protocol plans to begin deploying through venues and infrastructure it already uses for crypto trading.

There is a diversification argument too. Equity-perpetual funding does not necessarily move in lockstep with crypto funding, so one market may remain productive when the other cools.

Ethena says it waited until the market had deeper liquidity and enough trading history to judge that opportunity, a deliberate choice because higher headline funding alone does not make a position scalable.

The deployment will start over the coming weeks rather than arriving as one large allocation. That gives the protocol a chance to test execution, liquidity and off-hours pricing before the strategy becomes a major part of USDe’s backing.

The $7.5 billion line matters.

The strategy is arriving while USDe remains far below its prior peak. Supply was near $4.06 billion on August 28 after approaching $15 billion last year.

That leaves Ethena roughly $3.44 billion short of the $7.5 billion threshold tied to its proposed ENA buyback structure.

The Ethena Foundation said its latest ecosystem package includes changes involving early investors, future revenue allocation and the conditions around token purchases. The key point for ENA holders is that the proposed buyback mechanism does not start merely because a vote passes.

USDe must first rebuild enough supply to clear the threshold.

That makes the equity-perpetual expansion more than a side experiment. It is part of an effort to make USDe compelling enough to grow again—and growth is now directly connected to whether protocol revenue can begin flowing into recurring ENA purchases.

The opportunity comes with real risks.

Headline funding rates can disappear quickly as more capital takes the short side of a basis trade. Liquidity may also thin during stress.

Equity perpetuals keep trading around the clock even when the underlying stock market is closed. That can create sharper pricing gaps outside normal market hours.

Ethena is effectively betting that this market will deepen faster than those constraints erode the returns. If it is right, USDe gains access to a pool of equity exposure far larger than the crypto market.

If it is wrong, the eye-catching funding rates may prove too small or unstable at institutional scale.

For now, the signal is clear: Ethena no longer wants USDe’s next growth cycle to depend entirely on a comeback in Bitcoin and Ethereum leverage. It is taking the basis trade to Wall Street’s assets—and tying the result to the next major milestone for ENA.

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