Binance Move for $4.9 Billion Stablecoin: U.S. Stocks Join the Backing Model
Ethena announced that it will add tokenized U.S. stocks via Binance to the backing strategy for USDe, its synthetic dollar with a supply of approximately $4.9 billion.
According to a statement to The Block, Ethena will use Binance’s bStocks products as spot collateral while also aiming to hedge price risk with stock-based perpetual futures. This will expand a strategy previously applied to crypto assets to include stocks as well.
How Will Price Risk Be Hedged When Stocks Are Acquired?
The plan is not to tie USDe solely to rising stock prices. Ethena will extend its approach—known as delta-neutral, which reduces sensitivity to price movements by offsetting tokenized stock positions with derivatives trades—to this area. The framework to be used was previously approved by the Ethena Risk Committee.
bStocks on Binance represent rights to securities held by the issuer, BTech Holdings Limited. Subject to applicable legal requirements, they can be converted into the underlying securities through Binance. The announcement did not specify how much capital would be allocated to the new strategy.
Why Is Ethena Turning to the Stock Market?
Guy Young, founder of Ethena Labs, described the move as the most significant expansion of USDe’s funding mechanism since the project’s inception. Young said that bringing more stocks onto the blockchain offers an opportunity to diversify the backing strategy. The company expects the opportunity in stock-based perpetual futures to significantly surpass the cryptocurrency futures market over time.
According to data shared by Ethena, open interest in stock-based perpetual futures on Binance exceeded $2.9 billion. The company reported that compound monthly growth in this market was 105% year to date, while the average annualized rate over the past six months was 3.56%. This rate is not a fixed return promised to USDe users, but historical market data for the relevant trades.
According to The Block’s data dashboard, USDe’s total supply is approximately $4.9 billion. This is not the amount of capital announced for allocation to stocks; it indicates the size of the product to which the new strategy will be added.