Two Moves for ENA in Ethena: Certain Locked Tokens Purchased, Buyback Up for Vote

Ethena has announced four steps involving investor tokens, protocol revenues, and intellectual property rights to reorganize the ENA token economy.

According to the announcement shared by Wu Blockchain, the Ethena Foundation has purchased the locked tokens of several major early-stage investors who sold ENA over the past nine months and has reached an agreement on a new framework that will strengthen the economic rights of token holders.

The first step involves the purchase of all locked ENA tokens held by specific seed investors who had been selling. No amount was disclosed for the transaction in the announcement. This establishes a new arrangement for the locked tokens belonging to this investor group.

Governance voting begins for ENA buyback

The Ethena Foundation and Ethena Labs have also reached an agreement that allocates the protocol’s intellectual property and the ownership of value derived from the protocol to the Foundation. This structure envisions a model where token holders exercise control through governance, and residual cash flow from the protocol will not be transferred to equity investors in the Labs company.

One of the most notable points of the announcement was the governance proposal launched for the ENA buyback. If the proposal is accepted, net revenue generated from all business lines under the Ethena brand will be used to programmatically purchase ENA. The proposal is currently open for voting, and the Foundation’s post stated that it has been approved by the Risk Committee.

The Foundation and leading investors also aim to eliminate potential supply pressure from future monthly investor token unlocks. Accordingly, while unvested investor tokens are planned for release, team tokens will remain locked based on the initially determined vesting schedule.