Ethena Labs to Integrate USDe as Margin Collateral on Deribit
Ethena Labs announced the integration of its USDe as margin collateral on the Deribit derivatives exchange, allowing users to earn rewards for holding USDe while utilizing it in cross-collateral pools. This integration is expected by early January, pending regulatory approval.
Utilizing USDe and Its Benefits
Users can earn rewards by holding USDe and using it as margin collateral in derivatives strategies across exchanges like Bybit, Bitget, and Gate. Ethena Labs founder Guy Young noted that this integration introduces new structured product use cases not possible with traditional stablecoin collateral. Young anticipates this will become a significant venue for USDe, given Deribit's 85% market share in options trading and its potential to attract both traditional finance and crypto-native firms.
The announcement has positively impacted the price of Ethena (ENA) token, which was trading at $0.6019, reflecting a 3.73% increase in the last 24 hours, with a trading volume rise of 45.59% to $428.45 million. Over the past month, ENA has gained approximately 70%. Ethena Labs recently proposed the integration of Solana as collateral for USDe.
Ethena Labs Develops UStb Stablecoin
In addition to USDe, Ethena is developing a new stablecoin, UStb (USTB), in collaboration with BlackRock Inc. and Securitize. Announced two months ago, UStb aims to function similarly to traditional stablecoins, with reserves invested in BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, tokenized on Ethereum.
Ethena Labs characterized UStb as a “wholly independent product” from USDe, each having distinct risk profiles. The introduction of UStb could support USDe during challenging market conditions. Ethena's governance may decide to reallocate backing assets from USDe to UStb during negative funding rates to mitigate related risks.
Ethena plans for UStb to serve as an alternative to USDe for margin collateral on partnered centralized exchanges, including Bybit and Bitget.