Ethena expands USDe backing to equity perpetuals
Ethena (ENA)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
Cryptobriefing.com reports that Ethena is extending its delta-neutral backing strategy for the USDe synthetic dollar into equity perpetual futures. This move targets a market with over $6 billion in open interest, where high funding rates and a large total addressable market make it attractive. Ethena expects equity perpetuals to become the primary yield source for USDe within 12 to 24 months.
The protocol applies its existing framework of holding spot assets and shorting futures to synthetic versions of stocks and commodities. This shift follows the launch of Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 equity perps framework in October 2025, which drove weekly trading volumes up by over 5,000%. Peak volumes for these proxies reached $30 billion in Q1 2026.
USDe supply currently ranges between $4 billion and $4.5 billion, down from earlier peaks above $12 billion. The diversification effort began in April 2026 with equity and commodity perps, and added liquid stable assets and tokenized collateralized loan obligations. On August 19, 2026, Ethena announced a $1 billion secured warehouse lending facility with FalconX to add institutional lending revenue.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for ENA, measured when this story was written up on 28 August 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
Whalio data shows ENA trading at $0.1701 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 52.3%, indicating that buyers have controlled the majority of volume over the last day. However, shorter-term pressure has shifted, with the 1-hour buy ratio dropping to 44.4% and the 4-hour ratio at 48.9%, suggesting immediate buying momentum is fading relative to the daily average. The 24-hour volume delta is positive at $6,367,162, meaning net buying has outweighed selling over the full day. In contrast, the 1-hour and 4-hour volume deltas are negative, showing that recent trades have been net sellers. The CVD for the 24-hour close stands at $6,227,897, confirming that cumulative buying pressure has been stronger than selling pressure over the longer timeframe. Spot volume reached $137,269,138 with 609,691 trades, reflecting active market participation.
The latest daily buy ratio of 48.8% sits at the 47th percentile of the last 281 days, against a median of 49.0% - ordinary for this coin.
Twenty-four hours later
What ENA did over the 24 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for ENA, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, ENA experienced a 45.9% price increase, driven by a volume delta of $10,039,317 across eight days. Today’s 24-hour volume of $137,269,138 is 1.74 times the weekly average, marking this as an unusually active trading day. The current buy ratio of 52.3% is 2.5 percentage points higher than the 7-day average of 49.8%, indicating slightly stronger buying sentiment than usual. While three of the past seven days saw net buying, today’s short-term data shows a reversal from the daily trend. This surge in volume and price suggests a continuation of the recent upward momentum, though intraday sellers are currently outpacing buyers.