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.