Ethena Accelerates ENA Unlock to October 5, 2026
Ethena (ENA)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
bitcoinethereumnews.com reports that the Ethena Foundation will release all remaining locked tokens from original investors in a single step on October 5, 2026, ending the monthly linear vesting schedule. This acceleration means approximately 1.41 billion ENA, or about 14 percent of the float, becomes transferable at once, though the project has not officially confirmed this derived figure. The decision covers only the investor allocation, leaving team tokens on their existing lock-up schedule with roughly 12 percent of total supply still unvested.
The Foundation previously spent over two weeks buying locked holdings from early backers who held more than 0.25 percent of supply, though the size of this portion remains unpublished. A derived value for the release sits between $210 million and $240 million based on early September prices of $0.15 to $0.17. This single-date release concentrates selling risk on October 5 rather than spreading it across months.
Transferability does not guarantee immediate sales, as pressure depends on holders' cost bases and time horizons. The Foundation also proposed a fee switch to buy back ENA, but this only activates once the synthetic dollar USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion. At current levels near $4 billion, the buyback trigger is not yet active, meaning the unlock and buyback are not directly offsetting each other at this time.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for ENA, measured when this story was written up on 6 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio spot data for ENA shows a 24-hour buy ratio of 49.9%, with volume deltas remaining negative at -$104,728 over the same period. Shorter timeframes show weaker buying interest, with the 1-hour buy ratio at 42.8% and the 4-hour ratio at 46.2%. The negative volume delta indicates that sell volume exceeded buy volume across all measured intervals. This suggests that while nearly half of trades were buys, the magnitude of selling pressure was greater, leading to a net outflow of capital. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta closed at -$2,098,472, confirming that sellers dominated the flow despite the near-even split in trade count.
The latest daily buy ratio of 42.7% sits at the 1st percentile of the last 324 days, against a median of 49.0% - among the weakest buying days it has had.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for ENA, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
This is an ordinary day for the coin, characterized by a slight increase in buy ratio but significantly reduced volume compared to the weekly average.