Ethena USDe

Ethena's USDe keeps its dollar peg without keeping dollars, which sets it apart from almost every rival. It is a synthetic dollar: for each token, the protocol holds staked crypto collateral and simultaneously shorts an equal amount of ETH perpetual futures, so price swings on the two legs cancel out while funding payments and staking rewards pile up. Those returns flow to holders who stake into sUSDe, a design that has pushed USDe past five billion dollars in supply and made it the largest crypto-collateralized synthetic dollar behind Sky's USDS. Direct minting and redemption at par are gated to whitelisted, KYC-cleared participants, with US users and several other jurisdictions excluded, so retail exposure comes through the secondary market. Issued from the British Virgin Islands, Ethena wound down its separate European arm under regulatory pressure in 2025, even as USDe reached institutional platforms.