Ethena history: USDe and the ENA token
An essay turns into a company
In March 2023 Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, published an essay called “Dust on Crust”, arguing for a dollar backed by crypto and short futures. Guy Young, who had spent years in traditional finance, left his job to build it. In July 2023 Ethena Labs raised a seed round led by Dragonfly.
How USDe holds its price
USDe is a synthetic dollar. A classic stablecoin keeps dollars in a bank; Ethena holds crypto as collateral and opens an equal short position in futures, so a fall in the collateral is offset by a gain on the short. Holders who stake USDe earn the funding that traders pay on those positions. USDe opened to the public in February 2024.
April 2024: an airdrop of 750 million
On 2 April 2024 Ethena gave away 750 million ENA, 5% of the 15 billion supply, in an airdrop to users who had collected points. ENA started trading at about 0.64 dollars, worth around 1 billion dollars in circulation, The Defiant reported. Nine days later, on 11 April, it hit its all-time high of 1.52 dollars.
Up to 15 billion and back
USDe supply reached almost 15 billion dollars in early October 2025, according to DefiLlama data cited by DL News. During the crash of 10 October, USDe fell well below a dollar on Binance for a few hours. Over the next two months supply shrank by about 40% as traders cut their bets.