Ethena Raises $14 Million in Strategic Funding Round

Ethena secures $14 million through a SAFE, with backing from Arthur Hayes’s family office, Binance, Deribit, PayPal Ventures and others.

Through a SAFE, Ethena was able to raise $14 million in a strategic round. In addition to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes’s family office, Maelstrom, Dragonfly and Brevan Howard Digital also participated in the funding round.

Binance, Deribit, Gemini, and Kraken were among the cryptocurrency exchanges that participated in the funding, along with PayPal Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity via Avon Ventures.

According to Ethena CEO and founder Guy Young’s interview with The Block, the Ethereum staking protocol is valued at $300 million in the fundraising round. Despite receiving $50 million in commitments, Young claims that his company decided to end the deal at $14 million since it is not now in need of the extra funds.

Also revealed was the public launch of USDe, the company’s stealth-mode stablecoin based on Ethereum that had been running since December. According to the release, the USDe stablecoin has already achieved a total value lock of over $224 million.

Ethena presently offers three goods, as stated on its website. The USDe stablecoin, which is a synthetic dollar that is both neutral and has yield encoded into it; Internet Bonds, which are bonds denominated in US dollars that can be accessed globally; and Repo Financing.

By combining the inherent staked ether yield with the basis in futures markets, the bond enables investors to earn through a staked form of the USDe (sUSDe), according to Ethena. Ethena informed The Block that the bond had an average yearly return of 12–20% over the past two years.