Ethena’s ENA Jumps 8% as Bybit Endorses USDe Token as Collateral for Derivatives Trading

As a seasoned crypto investor with a keen interest in decentralized finance (DeFi), I’m thrilled about Bybit’s recent integration of USDe, the synthetic dollar from DeFi protocol Ethena, as a collateral asset for derivatives trading. This move expands USDe’s utility and provides an interesting bridge between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).

As a crypto investor, I’m excited to share that my decentralized finance (DeFi) investment in Ethena’s governance token, ENA, experienced a significant surge in value on Tuesday. The reason for this price increase was the announcement that prominent crypto exchange Bybit has integrated Ethena’s USDe “synthetic dollar” into their platform for various trading activities. This development expands the utility of the ENA token by increasing its demand and potential use cases within the DeFi ecosystem.

The price of ENA reached its peak in the past two weeks, reaching $0.96, despite a slight pullback. Nevertheless, it has gained over 8% during the previous 24 hours, according to CoinGecko’s data. In comparison, the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20), which generally represents the crypto market, has remained relatively stable.

The addition of USDe as a collateral asset on Bybit amplifies Ethana’s role as a connector between traditional financial systems (centralized finance or CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Joshua Lim, co-founder of derivatives dealer company Arbelos, in an interview with CoinDesk.

Lim highlighted that adding USDe to their positions can help lower risk for frequent traders, since USDe inherently contains a built-in short position.

“[This] is actually a huge deal,” Lim said.

This year, Ethena has made a significant impact on the crypto world, emerging as one of the most rapidly expanding DeFi protocols. Its innovative tokenized investment offering that generates yields has drawn in over $2 billion in deposits. However, this growth has not gone unnoticed by market analysts who are still wary of risks following the crypto market downturn.