MakerDAO Seizes USDe as Ethena Labs Unveils ENA with a 750m Airdrop
Ethena Labs, the creator of the synthetic dollar called USDe, has recently introduced its new governance token called ENA. To distribute the ENA tokens, the company has initiated an airdrop, with 5% of the total supply entering the market.
The announcement of this development was made by Ethena Labs through an X post, inviting users to claim their share of the airdrop. As a result of this news, the price of ENA experienced an 8% surge. According to Coingecko data, the token quickly gained a market cap of over $890 million on August 2.
The USDe token is at the heart of Ethena’s offerings. It is designed as a “synthetic dollar” and aims to maintain a stable value close to one dollar. This is achieved through a unique combination of ether liquid staking tokens and short ether (ETH) perpetual futures positions.
This strategy has not only attracted individual investors but has also caught the attention of institutional players in the cryptocurrency industry. MakerDAO, a stablecoin issuer, has announced plans to allocate 600 million DAI to Ethena’s USDe token. This partnership will be facilitated through the defi lending protocol Morpho Labs.
According to Seraphim Czecker, Ethena’s Head of Growth, the MakerDAO move aligns with the company’s internal expectations for growth. MakerDAO’s trust in Ethena and USDe stems from an analysis conducted by BA Labs, a part of MakerDAO’s advisory council. The analysis observed strong user demand for the stablecoin and recommended a greater allocation of MakerDAO’s stablecoin DAI in the higher leverage USDe pools.
In addition to this, Ethena has also launched a new phase of its airdrop campaign called “Sats”. This campaign aims to onboard BTC as a backing asset for USDe. By leveraging BTC perpetual futures, the project will have access to an additional $25 billion of open interest for hedging purposes.
