Synthetic dollar protocol Ethena has raised $100 million from a private sale of its ENA native governance token.
The previously unannounced sale was completed in December, with investors including Franklin Templeton, Polychain, Pantera, Dragonfly and Fidelity's venture capital arm, F-Prime, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block. The ENA tokens sold at an average price of just under $0.40. ENA is currently trading for $0.42, according to The Block's Ethena Price Page, dropping 67% from its December high of $1.27.
The funds will be used to support building out a new chain for the Ethena Network and its broader ecosystem, as well as the upcoming launch of its institutional product, iUSDe. Some of the proceeds were also used to repurchase tokens from existing investors to reset the cap table cost basis, the source said. Bloomberg first reported the news.
Ethena’s existing decentralized synthetic dollar, USDe, has grown to become the fourth-largest stablecoin, with a $5.9 billion circulating supply. Ethena's iUSDe, announced in January, is an attempt to "export" its staked USDe product, sUSDe, to legacy finance, including asset managers, ETFs, prime brokers, private credit funds and investment trusts, the project said at the time.
Like sUSDe, iUSDe is a rewards token users receive when staking their USDe on Ethena. This new token, geared towards institutions, employs a wrapper mechanism that can program transfer restrictions so that it can be held and used by traditional financial entities subject to regulatory oversight.
In February 2024, developer Ethena Labs announced it had raised $14 million in a strategic funding round at a $300 million valuation, co-led by Dragonfly and BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes' family office, Maelstrom.
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