Ethena: Top-Earning Crypto DApp

According to Seraphim Czecker, head of growth at Ethena Labs, Ethena has become the highest-earning decentralized application (DApp) by generating over $6.8 million in daily cumulative revenue in the past week. Only Tron and Ethereum have surpassed Ethena’s revenue, with $38.6 million and $182.5 million in daily cumulative revenue, respectively, over the past seven days. Ethena currently offers a 67.2% yield on its USDe synthetic dollar to over 350,000 users. The market capitalization of Ethena’s USDe has risen by 43% in the past week and 409% in the past month, reaching $840 million, according to DefiLlama data. The USDe synthetic dollar was launched on the Ethereum blockchain on February 19 by Ethena Labs. The launch raised concerns among investors due to its high annual percentage yield (APY) of 27.6%, which was significantly higher than the 20% yield offered by Anchor Protocol on Terra’s UST before Terra collapsed in May 2022. Guy Young, the founder of Ethena Labs, stated in an interview that the initial concerns regarding USDe’s yield were a sign of a maturing industry recovering from the collapse of the Terra Luna ecosystem. He emphasized the importance of being skeptical and assessing the fragility of protocols in their early stages. Unlike the failed Anchor protocol, the yield of USDe is publicly verifiable as it is generated through staking returns and shorting Ether perpetual future contracts. Ethena Labs secured $14 million in funding for the development of its synthetic dollar, with support from venture capital firm Dragonfly. In a previous funding round in 2023, the startup raised $6 million from investors including Binance Labs, Gemini, Bybit, Mirana Ventures, OKX Ventures, and Deribit.