The synthetic dollar protocol Ethereum (ENA) announced that token incentives and associated inflation, implemented to support USDe growth, will end completely at the end of the month.
Ethereum announced that USDe-related token incentives have been reduced by approximately 85% since the initial airdrop in 2024. The protocol stated that all token incentives and inflation for USDe will cease by the end of September, and no new tokens will be issued.
The Ethena team thanked the users who contributed to USDe reaching its current scale, and the decision is seen as a stepping stone to shift the protocol from a growth-promoting model to a more sustainable one.
Following this development, a remarkable increase was observed in the price of ENA. According to HTX data, ENA was one of the leading assets in the altcoin market during the day, with its price rising to $0.28.
The recent activity in ENA is also thought to be influenced by Ethereum’s new collaboration with Binance. On September 25th, Ethereum announced that it would be expanding USDe’s “basis trade” strategy beyond cryptocurrency perpetual futures markets to include equity perpetual futures.
Under the new model, Ethena plans to purchase bStocks, tokenized equity certificates issued by Binance-affiliated entities, and hedge against risk by shorting USDT margin trading perpetual futures on the same platform. Thus, Ethena aims to leverage a new revenue stream linked to traditional equity markets in its USDe return strategy.
*This is not investment advice.
