Ethena targets TradFi adoption with synthetic dollar in 2025 roadmap

Ethena is preparing to roll out a new crypto-based product aimed at attracting traditional finance (TradFi) institutions.

The blockchain platform plans to launch the new iUSDe product in February. Built on its synthetic dollar, sUSDe, iUSDe introduces a “simple wrapper contract” that adds transfer restrictions at the token level, according to Ethena’s 2025 roadmap published on Jan. 3.

The roadmap revealed that Ethena’s primary goal for the first quarter of 2025 is to collaborate with TradFi distribution partners to make iUSDe accessible to its clients. Ethena plans to announce these partners by the end of January.

“The singular focus for Q1 2025 will be working with traditional finance distribution partners to enable their clients to access iUSDe.”

The product’s main target audience includes asset managers, private credit funds, exchange-traded products, private investment trusts and prime brokers.

Ethena’s sUSDe offers a 10% annual percentage yield (APY) to over 368,000 investors, who invested over $5.85 billion in the synthetic dollar, Ethena data shows.

Synthetic dollar could disrupt TradFi markets

A yield-bearing synthetic dollar could attract significant attention from TradFi participants, considering the $190 trillion size of the fixed-income markets, which are the largest liquid investment class in the world.

The wealth preservation potential of a yield-generating dollar product could generate demand that is “several orders of magnitude larger than the entire crypto market combined, including Bitcoin,” according to Ethena’s roadmap, which added:

“And that is why the next logical step for these entities following the ETFs is a dollar savings product. The futures basis is the only market large enough in crypto with the capacity for their level of demand in a dollar format.”

Ethena’s synthetic dollar generates yield via staking returns and shorting Ether perpetual futures contracts, Guy Young, the founder of Ethena Labs, told Cointelegraph in an exclusive interview.

Ethena the second-fastest protocol to hit $100 million in revenue

Ethena was the second-fastest protocol to surpass the $100 million revenue milestone in crypto history.

It took Ethena 251 days to generate the first $100 million revenue, compared to second place, memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, which surpassed the milestone in just 217 days.

Illustrating Ethena’s rapid adoption, USDe became the crypto industry’s third-largest US dollar-based product in just 10 months, behind Circle’s USDC and market leader, Tether’s USDt stablecoin.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethena-launches-yield-bearing-synthetic-dollar-for-tradfi