Ethena Labs launch ENA with a 750m airdrop as MakerDAO grabs USDe

Synthetic dollar issuer Ethena Labs has announced the launch of claims for its new governance token ENA.

The protocol, known for its yield-earning USDe token, is looking to distribute 750 million ENA tokens through an airdrop. The airdrop will see 5% of the token’s total supply flow into the market.

Ethena Labs announced the development via an X post, inviting users to claim the airdrop. Following the announcement, the price of ENA jumped 8%. The token quickly garnered a considerable market cap of over $890 million on Aug. 2, per Coingecko data.

At the core of Ethena’s offering is the USDe token, designed as a “synthetic dollar” that aims to maintain a stable value close to one dollar. It achieves this through a unique blend of ether liquid staking tokens and short ether (ETH) perpetual futures positions. 

This strategy has not only attracted individual investors but also caught the eye of institutional players within the cryptocurrency domain.

Stablecoin issuer MakerDAO has revealed plans to allocate 600 million DAI to Ethena’s USDe token. This move will be facilitated through the defi lending protocol Morpho Labs. 

“Ethena TVL growth is on track with internal expectations,” said Seraphim Czecker, Ethena’s Head of Growth, after announcing the MakerDAO move. 

MakerDAO’s faith in Ethena and USDe stems from an analysis by BA Labs, part of MakerDAO’s advisory council, which observed strong user demand for the stablecoin. The analysis recommended focusing on higher leverage USDe pools, advocating for a more considerable allocation of MakerDAO’s stablecoin DAI in these areas.

Meanwhile, Ethena has also launched a new phase of its airdrop on April 2. Dubbed the “Sats” campaign, it will focus on onboarding BTC as a backing asset for USDe. The project will leverage BTC perpetual futures, giving it access to an additional $25bn of open interest to hedge.