Deribit, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges, plans to integrate Ethena’s synthetic dollar USDe (USDe) as rewarding margin collateral.
As part of the integration, Deribit will enable users to earn rewards for holding USDe and use it as derivatives margin collateral in a cross-collateral pool, the firm announced on Nov. 22.
According to Deribit, the exchange targets including USDe in its cross-collateral pool as of early January, pending regulatory approval.
The integration unlocks “completely new structured product use cases”
According to Ethena Labs founder Guy Young, the upcoming integration will unlock “completely new structured product use cases” not previously possible on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges with “vanilla stablecoin collateral.”
“With more than 85% of market share within the options space, I expect this will become one of the most important venues for USDe use cases within the next few months for both traditional finance and crypto-native trading entities,” Young noted.
Ethena Labs founder Guy Young comments on Deribit’s plans to integrate USDe as rewarding margin collateral. Source: G | Ethena
Apart from Deribit, some crypto exchanges like Bitget and Gate have also been integrating USDe as margin collateral, according to Ethena.
Ethena’s ENA spikes 13% on the news
Launched in 2023, Ethena is a decentralized stablecoin protocol that offers USDe, which is a synthetic dollar or a type of digital financial instrument that mimics the value of the US dollar without being directly backed by physical dollars in reserve.
Instead, USDe is backed by delta-hedging derivatives positions on perpetual and futures markets, which makes it completely decentralized.
Related: Ethena adopts fee-sharing proposal for ENA token
In addition to USDe, Ethena also operates its own Ethena (ENA) token, the governance token in the Ethena ecosystem and has seen significant growth over the past few months.
Ethena (ENA) 30-day price chart. Source: CoinGecko
Amid Deribit’s USDe integration announcement, Ethena’s ENA token expanded gains, with ENA surging roughly 13% on the day to an intraday high of $0.63, according to data from CoinGecko.
With freshly added value, Ethena’s ENA is up roughly 70% over the past 30 days at the time of writing.
In September, Ethena Labs announced its new stablecoin project, UStb (USTB), which will be developed in collaboration with major Bitcoin investor BlackRock and the digital securities platform Securitize.
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