Ethena expands USDe stablecoin's basis-trade strategy into tokenized equities via Binance, using bStocks as collateral hedged through equity perpetuals.
DeFi & Yields ·
Ethena announced a partnership with Binance to back its USDe stablecoin using tokenized stocks through a basis trade strategy. The protocol will purchase Binance's bStocks—tokenized equity positions backed one-for-one by custodied shares—while simultaneously shorting matching equity perpetuals to collect funding payments from leveraged long positions. CryptoPotato reported that Binance's equity basis has averaged approximately 11% annualized over the past six months, and Ethena anticipates the addressable market for equity perpetuals to exceed $15 billion.
The mechanism mirrors Ethena's existing collateral strategy, which has backed a $4.9 billion synthetic dollar using the same hedged approach across Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana. Seventeen of Binance's 67 equity perpetual pairs qualified for the framework, including positions in Nvidia, Tesla, and SpaceX, following criteria established by Kairos Research for the Ethena Risk Committee. The approval of bStocks was conditioned on a side letter with the issuer, as holders retain no proprietary interest in the underlying shares and each contract operates behind a single upgrade key.
ENA token price moved to $0.24, reflecting a 12% increase over 24 hours. Whether the basis trade yields on tokenized stocks will sustain at current levels amid rising allocations, and how regulatory treatment of bStocks may evolve, remain unresolved.