Standard Chartered upgrades Ethena, targets $40B USDe supply
Ethena (ENA)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
tradersunion.com reports that Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Ethena, forecasting that its USDe stablecoin supply will expand from $4.9 billion to $40 billion by the end of 2028. This growth projection supports the bank's $4 price target for the ENA token, which is currently trading at $0.26. Standard Chartered ranks Ethena as the fourth-largest stablecoin issuer overall and the second-largest issuer of yield-bearing stablecoins behind Sky.
To sustain yield as crypto basis trade returns fall, Ethena is diversifying into real-world assets, DeFi, and tokenized equities via Binance's bStocks. The bank notes that Ethena's fee switch, approved with 100% of votes, directs 95% of net revenue to programmatic ENA buybacks. At a $40 billion USDe supply, these buybacks would equal approximately 23% of ENA's circulating value annually.
The bank argues this rate is unsustainable and that ENA price appreciation must eventually reduce the buyback ratio to a lower range. Risks to the forecast include slower growth in yield-bearing stablecoins and weaker expansion in blockchain-based real-world assets.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for ENA, measured when this story was written up on 30 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
ENA is trading at $0.2484 on Binance spot, with buy ratios holding steady at 47.5% for the 1-hour and 47.4% for the 4-hour windows. These short-term figures are slightly higher than the 24-hour buy ratio of 43.7%, suggesting that buying pressure is stabilizing after a period of lower activity. Volume delta remains negative across all timeframes, with -$746,563 in the last hour and -$1,180,582 over four hours. This negative delta indicates that sell volume is currently outweighing buy volume, a trend that has persisted for 22 of the last 24 hours. The cumulative volume delta for the day stands at -$10,246,932, reflecting consistent selling pressure against a 24-hour spot volume of $42,776,564.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.0% sits at the 67th percentile of the last 323 days, against a median of 49.0% - ordinary for this coin.
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, the average buy ratio was 49.5%, making today's 24-hour ratio of 43.7% notably lower by 5.9 points. Trading volume has also contracted, sitting at 0.61 times the weekly average, indicating a quieter market than usual. Despite the lower volume and reduced buy ratio, the price has risen 14.7% over the past eight days. However, the total volume delta for the week is -$12,681,860, showing that net selling has outweighed buying over this longer period. This contrasts with the broader market context where rated corporate debt reached $26.1 trillion by mid-2026, driven by investment-grade issuance.