Ethena Ends USDe Incentives as Investor ENA Unlock Moves to Oct. 5
The protocol is expanding into tokenized U.S. stocks while ending ENA issuance tied to USDe growth and accelerating remaining investor allocations.
Ethena’s ENA token has risen from $0.014 on Sept. 16 to about $0.28 as the protocol expands its yield strategy to tokenized U.S. stocks, ends USDe growth incentives and accelerates remaining investor token unlocks.
On Sept. 25, Ethena added Binance’s tokenized U.S. stocks as collateral and began hedging the related exposure through Binance stock perpetual contracts. The move extends the protocol’s existing strategy of holding spot assets while shorting equivalent perpetual contracts.
USDe supply is about $5.5 billion, while open interest in Binance stock perpetual contracts exceeds $2.9 billion. The average annualized yield from stock basis trades over the past six months was 3.56%.
By August 2026, crypto-basis trading contributed about 1% to returns, while USDe supply had fallen below $5 billion. The protocol’s supply later contracted more than 65% from a peak of about $15 billion in October 2025.
Ethena plans to end all token incentives and inflation tied to USDe growth by the end of September. Those incentives have declined about 85% since the first airdrop in 2024, after more than $750 million in rewards were distributed.
Ending the remaining incentives will stop additional ENA issuance tied to USDe growth. The change comes as Ethena shifts its funding strategy beyond crypto basis trading and toward tokenized stock markets.
Ethena’s remaining investor token allocations will unlock in a single release on Oct. 5, 2026, ending the investor schedule about 17 months earlier than planned. The original schedule called for roughly 78.125 million ENA to be released each month through March 2028.
Team and foundation allocations are excluded from the acceleration and remain subject to their existing monthly vesting schedules. The regular team allocation will still be released on Oct. 5.
A holding address identified as StablecoinX contains about 3.03 billion ENA, or roughly 20% of total supply. Its lockup, vesting and staged-release restrictions will be permanently removed on Oct. 5, but any sale, transfer or other disposal requires the foundation’s prior written approval. A permitted transaction also requires at least five business days’ written notice, and the foundation has a right of first refusal.
