Ethena expands USDe backing to include equity perpetual futures, citing $6B open interest and 15-20% funding rates.

Ethena plans to extend USDe's basis allocation to equity perpetual futures, with first partner exchange announcements and deployments expected within weeks. The firm cites nearly $6 billion of open interest across 200 equity perpetual contracts on venues it already uses, having grown over 10x since March, with average funding rates of 15-20%—over 5x Bitcoin funding rates in 2026—and near-zero correlation to crypto funding. Ethena points to a $150 trillion underlying equity asset base versus roughly $2.5 trillion for crypto, and expects RWA perpetuals to exceed crypto allocations in USDe backing within 12-24 months. It says it has operated with 0bps impairment on over $30 billion of mint and redeem flow for more than 2.5 years.

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