Key Takeaways
- Coinbase Ventures bought ENA as Coinbase and Ethena expand onchain finance products.
- Ethena products could reach Coinbase’s 100M+ users, boosting USDe and ENA adoption.
- Coinbase and Ethena plan a new growth initiative next week focused on digital savings.
Coinbase Ventures Buys ENA as Ethena Targets 100M Coinbase Users
Coinbase Ventures has taken a position in Ethena’s ENA token through an open market purchase, marking a closer relationship between Coinbase and one of the fastest-growing projects in onchain finance.
Ethena said the investment comes alongside a new partnership with Coinbase focused on expanding onchain finance and digital savings products. The first growth initiative is expected to launch next week and will make Ethena products available to Coinbase’s user base of more than 100 million.
Ethena founder Guy Young said the tie-up will support Coinbase’s dollar savings products. He also said changing U.S. legislation, including the evolving Clarity Act, could create further demand for onchain products such as USDe, especially from idle balances held on exchanges.
Coinbase Ventures described Ethena as a key player in onchain finance and said it is looking forward to deeper collaboration with Coinbase and USDC.
The deal comes after a busy month for Ethena. The protocol surpassed $500 million in total white-label supply across Jupiter, MegaETH, and Sui. It also launched dedicated Ethena markets on Jupiter and Kamino Finance, with the combined market size surpassing $1 billion within days.
Ethena has also expanded quickly on Solana. ENA went live on the network through Sunrise DeFi, while Ethena’s total value locked on Solana rose to more than $500 million from $50 million a month earlier. That made Solana Ethena the second-largest chain outside Ethereum.
USDe supply increased by more than 15% over the past 30 days. USDtb supply also climbed back above $1 billion, rising more than 70% over the same period.
Cross-chain activity has grown as well. Ethena assets have now processed more than $33 billion in transfer volume through Layerzero. Ethereal DEX also expanded testing for Ethereal Predict, a USDe-native prediction market that allows users to combine outcomes into multi-leg positions.
Ethena has continued to update its risk and transparency materials. The project published an analysis of gold perpetual-basis trades as part of its work on USDe backing diversification. It also improved its transparency page with more details on reserve backing and released a security post on the recent rsETH incident.
At the same time, Ethena has scaled back some operations. The team deprecated USDe and sUSDe bridging on several chains, saying it will focus security and operational resources where activity is strongest.
