USDe is already backed by Ether, Ether-based liquid staking tokens and Tether, but Ethena says Bitcoin will provide more “safe” and “robust” product for USDe token holders.
Ethena Labs, the team behind the USDe, has added Bitcoin (BTC) as collateral to its synthetic dollar-pegged product with the hopes of scaling “significantly” from its current $2 billion supply.
With Bitcoin open interest increasing from $10 billion to $25 million over the past year on major cryptocurrency exchanges, USDe has the capacity to scale by a factor of 2.5, Ethena explained in an April 4 post on X.
USDe went live on Ethereum on Feb. 19. At the time, Ethena promised a 27.6% annual percentage yield (APY) on staked USDe, prompting widespread concerns in the community. USDe’s APY topped out at 113% on March 5 but has since fallen to 7.15%.
