Ethena has moved closer to linking USDe growth, consumer payments and ENA buybacks into one economic structure. According to research by Alea Research, translated by TechFlow, the recently approved ENA fee switch and the launch of Ethena Pay give the protocol a more defined route from expanding dollar balances to revenue allocation.
The report says Ethena is entering the neobank segment as both the issuer of account dollars and the manager of the backing assets behind them. That gives Pay an economic edge: backing income can fund user rewards, while payment functionality gives customers another reason to hold USDe.
Pay gives Ethena a direct user channel
Alea Research argues that Pay lets an established dollar issuer build a direct relationship with customers instead of relying as heavily on partners to distribute USDe. Users get self-custody accounts, virtual IBANs, card payment access and instant peer-to-peer transfers. Promotional balance rewards can reach 6%, and cashback can go as high as 5%, subject to tier caps and qualifying transaction requirements.
Ethena Pay has launched its iOS version in nearly 50 countries. Ethena plans to add Android, the United States, the European Union and multicurrency support in September.
An official Ethena Pay image shows example account balances along with top-up and send functions.
USDe supply is growing again, and Pay adds a spending use case
USDe supply reached $4.33 billion on Sept. 4, increasing by $436 million over 30 days, or 11.2%. The report says Pay adds a consumer-side channel to that recovering dollar base.
Even so, supply remains well below earlier levels. USDe is still down 65.6% from a year earlier and 70.8% below its October 2025 peak of $14.82 billion. As circulation recovers, Pay introduces a separate spending use case for those balances.
The report separates those balances by function. Dollars received, held and spent in Pay serve a different purpose from balances rotating across yield strategies. The opportunity, in its view, is recurring transactional balances outside pure investment demand. Transfers of existing USDe change distribution, while net new funds expand issuance.
Backing assets and rewards are central to the model
Every deposit into Pay is converted into USDe. Ethena allocates the backing assets across stablecoin liquidity, DeFi lending, hedged crypto positions, institutional lending and tokenized credit.
On Sept. 5, Ethena reported $4.37 billion of backing assets plus $62.1 million in reserves, covering 101.97% of USDe supply.
As of Sept. 5, the backing mix was 30.3% liquid stablecoins, 30.3% DeFi lending, 16.7% crypto basis, 11.6% tokenized credit and 11.2% institutional lending, with reserves counted separately.
The report says crypto neobanking competitors generally do not issue the underlying stablecoin themselves. Most depend on USDC or USDT and on third-party protocols for yield. Ethena, by contrast, keeps the backing income tied to its own dollar product and decides how much of that income to route toward customer rewards and acquisition.
Ethena has also published its promotional tiers. Balance rewards combine base yield and promotional boosts. On AVAX cashback, the Standard tier starts at 4% on the first $2,500 of monthly spending, the Pro tier offers 4.5% on the first $8,000, and the VIP tier offers 5% on the first $20,000. Cashback rates drop for later spending bands.
As of Sept. 5, Ethena Pay’s annual promotional balance rewards were listed as 5% on up to $5,000 for Standard, 6% on up to $15,000 for Pro and 6% on up to $50,000 for VIP, provided users meet monthly qualifying card-spend requirements.
Ethena is widening its yield engine into stock perpetual basis
Ethena’s risk committee published a stock basis framework on Aug. 28. The strategy holds tokenized equities and shorts the corresponding perpetual contracts. According to the report, that expands the hedging model beyond crypto price exposure and funding rates. HIP-3 equity markets broaden the range of venues the team can study as liquidity develops.
As of Aug. 26, the framework counted $2.9 billion of one-sided open interest in stock perpetuals across four venues. An initial screen found 17 eligible Binance names and three eligible OKX names. Actual position limits depend on whichever is tightest among open interest, trading volume, token float and executable depth across both legs.
In a scenario with 20 hypothetical non-overlapping positions, total capacity under a half-depth constraint would be $5 million, $20 million and $100 million when single-position depth assumptions are $500,000, $2 million and $10 million, respectively, before other limits are applied.
The report adds a revenue illustration. At a 7% annualized spread, deploying $100 million would contribute $7 million before costs. The Binance basket spread fell from 18% in late July to about 7% on Aug. 26, a relative decline of 61%. More venues spread the opportunity set, while liquidity and spreads determine economic size.
The ENA fee switch has been approved
The fee switch vote ended on Sept. 2 with 88 votes cast, 17.79 million voting power in favor and zero against. Under the approved structure, 5% of total protocol revenue will be allocated to ENA when USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion. That rises to 10% at $10 billion, 15% at $15 billion and 20% at $20 billion. After activation, the foundation will use 95% of eligible net income for ENA buybacks.
Using the Sept. 4 USDe supply level of $4.33 billion as a base, the report models several supply paths: flat supply, $100 million of net monthly issuance and $300 million of net monthly issuance. The first fee tier begins at $7.5 billion.
The report says ENA’s $1.6 billion circulating market capitalization corresponds to $4.33 billion of USDe, a ratio of 2.71x between dollar supply and token value. At the first fee threshold of $7.5 billion USDe supply, a 4.6% underlying yield implies $345 million of annual gross revenue and a $17.25 million foundation allocation.
Holding ENA market capitalization constant, foundation annual allocations imply multiples of 142x, 93x and 71x when the annualized underlying yield is 3%, 4.6% and 6%, respectively. In the report’s framing, stronger profitability lowers those multiples without requiring a higher token price.
A valuation sensitivity table compares another set of outcomes at $7.5 billion of USDe supply. Foundation annual distributions of $11.25 million, $17.25 million and $22.5 million are paired with 50x, 100x and 150x valuation assumptions, then compared with ENA’s $1.6 billion reference market capitalization.
The report also notes that underlying income first goes to the protocol. The fee schedule routes only part of it to the foundation, and buybacks use 95% of eligible net income after deductions. Total distributions are not the same as cash flow to token holders.
Alea Research concludes that Pay gives Ethena a customer acquisition budget supported by income from its own dollar product, along with a direct channel for retaining balances. More recurring balances expand the earnings base, and the approved fee schedule creates a clearer path from that growth to ENA buybacks.
