Crypto
Ethena has emerged as a significant player in the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem, demonstrating resilience and growth even during challenging market conditions.
Launched in February 2024, the protocol has rapidly established itself as one of the fastest-growing applications in the crypto space. Ethena’s mission centers on creating Internet Money, a product designed to converge capital and interest rates across DeFi, centralized finance (CeFi), and traditional finance (TradFi).
As the crypto market evolves, Ethena’s 2025 roadmap outlines its plans to expand beyond its initial achievements. This includes entering traditional finance with a regulated product offering, developing a Telegram-based payments and savings application, and supporting the growth of its ecosystem through new chain and application launches.
Ethena’s 2024 Highlights
Ethena’s growth in 2024 solidified its position as a key player in the crypto ecosystem. Below are some of the most notable achievements:
- Rapid Growth in Supply: Ethena’s USDe became the third-largest USD-denominated asset in crypto, reaching $6 billion in supply within just 10 months. It also became the fastest USD asset in crypto history to reach $5 billion in supply.
- Revenue Milestones: The protocol surpassed $1.2 billion in annualized revenue in its first year, achieving the highest revenue per employee (FTE) in the space as of December 2024.
- Integration Across DeFi and CeFi: USDe emerged as a crucial building block for decentralized finance applications:
- It accounted for 50% of Pendle’s TVL, and over 30% of Morpho’s TVL originated from leveraging Ethena assets.
- On Aave, Ethena’s launch was the fastest-growing new asset in 2024, reaching $1.2 billion in supply within three weeks.
- Within centralized exchanges (CeFi), USDe is now integrated with 60% of the market, surpassing USDC balances on Bybit in less than a month.
Additionally, Ethena launched USDtb, a product designed to incentivize centralized exchanges by sharing economics with distribution partners. This approach encourages greater adoption of Ethena’s ecosystem across both DeFi and CeFi.
Ethena’s performance in 2024 set the foundation for its next phase of growth, which aims to expand beyond crypto and into the broader financial system.
Entering Traditional Finance with iUSDe
A key focus for Ethena in 2025 will be bridging the gap between crypto and traditional finance through iUSDe, a regulated product offering based on its existing sUSDe asset.
What is iUSDe?
iUSDe is designed to meet the needs of traditional financial entities by adding a regulatory-compliant wrapper to sUSDe. This allows institutions to integrate crypto-native returns into their portfolios while remaining within traditional finance compliance frameworks.
Distribution and Partnerships:
Ethena plans to distribute iUSDe through partnerships with entities across the financial sector, including:
- Asset Managers
- Private Credit Funds
- Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs)
- Private Investment Trusts
- Prime Brokers
By collaborating with these institutions, Ethena aims to provide traditional investors with access to dollar-denominated assets that deliver competitive returns and expand its market beyond the existing crypto user base.
Why iUSDe Appeals to Traditional Finance
The appeal of iUSDe lies in its combination of crypto-native returns and risk management. Unlike traditional fixed-income products, iUSDe’s yield is driven by two crypto-native sources of return:
- Futures basis trading.
- Real cash flow from crypto markets.
This approach allows iUSDe to deliver negatively correlated returns to real rates, a property that is rare in legacy finance. For example, during the easing rate environment in Q4 2024, sUSDe protocol yields increased from 8% to over 20%, highlighting its potential as an alternative to traditional fixed-income products.
With fixed-income markets exceeding $190 trillion in size, Ethena aims to position iUSDe as a product that bridges the gap between legacy finance and crypto-native innovations. The protocol anticipates more than $10 billion in additional demand for iUSDe in the near term.
Next, we will explore Ethena’s efforts to integrate with mainstream platforms, including its plans to launch a savings and payments application within Telegram to reach a global user base.
Expanding Access Through a Telegram Savings and Payments Application
In 2025, Ethena aims to make USDe accessible to a wider audience through the launch of a savings and payments application within the Telegram ecosystem. With over 900 million users, Telegram provides an established platform for Ethena to bring its product to a global user base.
What the Application Offers:
The application is designed to deliver a seamless mobile banking experience, allowing users to:
- Save their funds in USDe, benefiting from its yield-generating properties.
- Send and receive payments as easily as sending a message on Telegram.
- Integrate with Apple Pay, enabling direct mobile tap payments linked to their USDe balance.
This approach aims to combine the most critical financial tool—a dollar with yield—with the simplicity and accessibility of a widely used messaging app. By leveraging Telegram’s global reach, Ethena seeks to make USDe a practical savings and payments tool for people around the world.
Building an Ecosystem: Ethena Network Applications
Beyond stablecoins, Ethena is positioning itself as a platform for financial innovation. The Ethena Network will support the development of applications and protocols that leverage its core assets, including sUSDe.
Key Ecosystem Applications:
- Ethereal:
A dedicated perpetual and spot exchange that uses sUSDe for its entire orderbook, with liquidity and hedging flows provided by Ethena.- Testnet launch scheduled for early 2025.
- Derive:
A protocol for on-chain options and structured products, with sUSDe as a core collateral asset.- Token launch planned within the next two weeks.
Ethena’s ecosystem strategy also includes aligning its token model (sENA) with the success of these applications. For example, new protocols in the Ethena ecosystem are expected to allocate portions of their token supply to sENA holders, creating additional incentives for adoption and participation.
Building an Ecosystem: Ethena Network Applications
Beyond stablecoins, Ethena is positioning itself as a platform for financial innovation. The Ethena Network will support the development of applications and protocols that leverage its core assets, including sUSDe.
Key Ecosystem Applications:
- Ethereal:
A dedicated perpetual and spot exchange that uses sUSDe for its entire orderbook, with liquidity and hedging flows provided by Ethena.- Testnet launch scheduled for early 2025.
- Derive:
A protocol for on-chain options and structured products, with sUSDe as a core collateral asset.- Token launch planned within the next two weeks.
Ethena’s ecosystem strategy also includes aligning its token model (sENA) with the success of these applications. For example, new protocols in the Ethena ecosystem are expected to allocate portions of their token supply to sENA holders, creating additional incentives for adoption and participation.
Macro Tailwinds: Rate Environment as a Catalyst for Growth
Ethena’s growth is supported by macroeconomic trends, particularly the easing interest rate environment. The sUSDe protocol yields are negatively correlated with real rates, making it a compelling alternative to traditional fixed-income products.
Key Observations:
- As real rates decline, demand for leverage increases, driving up funding rates and boosting the yield generated by sUSDe.
- In Q4 2024, rate reductions of 75bps saw funding rates rise from 8% to over 20%, illustrating how falling rates benefit Ethena’s products.
This dynamic creates a compounding effect, as declining rates not only expand the demand for stablecoins but also enhance Ethena’s risk-adjusted returns relative to legacy fixed-income portfolios.
The Future of the Crypto Dollar Landscape
The role of stablecoins in the crypto market is evolving, with new use cases emerging across trading, savings, and payments. Ethena has already established product-market fit in savings and collateral use cases, and its roadmap focuses on expanding into areas with significant growth potential.
Current and Future Use Cases:
- Current Dominance: Ethena has captured a significant share of the crypto savings market, competing with existing stablecoins like USDT and USDC in trading and collateral use cases.
- Future Expansion: With products like iUSDe and the Telegram application, Ethena is poised to capture new market segments, including traditional finance savings products and consumer payments.
These developments are expected to bring $50 billion+ in new flows into the stablecoin market over the next two years, with Ethena positioned as a key beneficiary.
Ethena’s achievements in 2024 laid the foundation for its ambitious 2025 roadmap. By bridging DeFi, CeFi, and TradFi, Ethena aims to redefine the role of stablecoins in global financial markets.
All the information provided in this article is based on Ethena’s official 2025 roadmap. The implementation and success of these plans depend on the Ethena team’s ability to execute and deliver as outlined.
