Ethena plans to expand the collateral supporting its USDe yield product by incorporating basis trades on equity perpetuals. This strategy targets the growing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization market, which has seen open interest climb to $6 billion since March.
The $150 trillion scale advantage over crypto
The protocol is looking toward a massive asset base to stabilize and grow its yield. According to the project, the underlying asset base for equity perpetuals exceeds $150 trillion , a staggering figure when compared to the roughly $2.5 trillion currently found in the crypto market. Ethena believes this RWA perpetual market could outpace crypto-based basis allocations within the next twelve to twenty-four months.
This expansion comes as the RWA tokenization perps market has already demonstrated significant momentum, growing tenfold in just a few months. By targeting this segment, Ethena is positioning itself to tap into a "hundred-x opportunity" that could eventually surpass the total volume and open interest of the global crypto market.
A shift from USDT and Aave-based reserves
Currently, Ethena’s USDe relies heavily on a mix of liquid stablecoins and decentralized finance. The report says that approximately 32% of the collateral sits in liquid stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, while 31% is distributed through DeFi lending protocols including Aave and Morpho. This diversification represents the protocol's second major wave of expansion, following its previous move into traditional credit.
By adding equity perpetuals to this mix, Ethena is attempting to build a more robust reserve structure. The goal is to move away from a purely crypto-centric collateral model and toward one that can scale alongside traditional financial markets.
The volatility of the $15 billion USDe peak
History suggests that relying on basis trades—which involve locking in the spread between an asset's spot price and its futures contract—carries significant cyclical risk.. During the 2024 to 2025 bull run, the market supply for USDe reached nearly $15 billion, with over 80% of that supply tied to yield products. However, the subsequent crypto winter saw supply contract to $4 billion and yields drop below zero percent.
This sharp contraction underscores the volatility inherent in crypto-native basis strategies. Ethena's leadership has noted that they took a cautious approach to the nascent RWA market, waiting for deep, liquid markets with sufficient data history before deploying at scale to mitigate these types of sudden liquidity shifts.
Can equity perps maintain a 1.6% spread over T-bills?
As Ethena prepares to deploy these trades in the coming weeks, several questions remain regarding the stability and demand for the new yield model. While USDe currently offers a spread of approximately 1.6% compared to short-term United States Treasury bonds, it is unclear if equity perpetuals will porvide a similarly reliable premium once factoring in DeFi-specific security risks.
Furthermore, the report notes that it remains to be seen whether this round of yield diversification will meaningfully boost demand for USDe. While the potential for 100x growth in the underlying market is massive, the protocol must still prove that these traditional assets can provide a stable floor during the next inevitable crypto market downturn.
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