Ethena Expands USDe Backing Strategy Into Tokenized Stocks and Equity Perpetuals

Ethena’s proposed expansion of USDe backing into tokenized equities arrives after the most conspicuous part of the trade has already weakened. Annualized funding across the Binance names that meet its initial screen averaged about 18% in late July, according to the framework submitted to Ethena governance. By the time of the report, that figure had fallen to roughly 7%, and two names had negative funding.

That does not invalidate the strategy. It does, however, put the central proposition in sharper terms: USDe would not be gaining access to a durable, automatic premium merely because equity perpetuals are a new market. It would be taking on a tightly defined arbitrage trade whose return depends on funding remaining favorable, whose execution is concentrated on a small set of venues, and whose hedge is least reliable during the hours that tokenized equities are meant to serve.

Equity-perpetual funding has fallen from 18% to roughly 7%

The proposed position is straightforward in structure. Ethena would go long a tokenized equity and short an equity perpetual contract for the same underlying on the same exchange, seeking to collect perpetual funding while offsetting directional share-price exposure. In principle, a rise or fall in the underlying equity should be largely neutralized by the opposing legs, leaving funding and trading frictions as the material sources of return or loss.

But the proposal is narrower than a broad allocation to tokenized stocks. Ethena’s framework, prepared with Kairos Research, initially identified 17 eligible Binance names and three on OKX. Those are assets that met its specific tests for perpetual-market depth, funding history, listed underlyings and a corresponding tokenized spot product on the same venue.

The contraction in observed carry matters because the trade’s market-neutral construction does not create yield by itself. Funding is paid between long and short perpetual participants, and its direction can change. At roughly 7% annualized, the reported average still represents a potential income source before costs and losses, but it is materially lower than the late-July reading. Negative funding in two approved names also demonstrates that the opportunity is neither uniform across equities nor assured over time.

That is a meaningful distinction for a stablecoin collateral strategy. An allocation designed around repeatable yield needs more than a period of elevated funding: it needs sufficient return after transaction costs, hedge slippage and the capital required to withstand adverse moves. The framework offers evidence of a market that can support selected trades, not evidence that every tokenized-equity perpetual will consistently pay a premium.

Ethena’s eligibility screen leaves Binance as the viable initial venue

The screen itself explains why the potential universe is small. A qualifying perpetual must have at least $25 million in one-sided open interest averaged over 14 days and at least 30 days of funding history. The underlying must be listed, cannot be a leveraged or inverse exchange-traded fund, and must have a matching tokenized spot asset on the same venue.

Each restriction serves an execution purpose. Open interest is a rough guardrail against entering a position in a market too shallow to handle collateral at scale. Funding history permits an assessment of behavior rather than an extrapolation from a launch-period print. Requiring both legs on one venue addresses a more practical problem: a hedge that depends on transferring assets or settling across platforms can break down just when prices move fastest.

The result is substantial venue concentration. Binance supplied 17 qualifying names, compared with three at OKX, while Bybit and Kraken had no names that met the criteria in the initial review. That concentration may be unavoidable in a young market, but it means operational conditions at one exchange carry outsized importance for a strategy intended to contribute to USDe backing.

Same-venue matching reduces one category of basis and settlement risk; it does not eliminate exchange dependence. Liquidity conditions, index construction, margin practices and the availability of the tokenized stock leg all become linked to the venue where the short perpetual is held. The conservative screen is therefore less a broad endorsement of tokenized-equity infrastructure than a recognition that usable liquidity remains uneven.

The 47% off-hours bStocks volume is both the thesis and the risk

Binance reported that bStocks, launched on June 11, 2026, rose from $5.6 million in holdings on day one to more than $100 million within 15 days and generated $458 million in cumulative trading volume. About 47% of that volume took place outside traditional U.S. market hours.

For Ethena, the significance is structural: a long tokenized-equity position and a short equity perpetual need to remain tradable on a 24/7 schedule. Ethena’s risk analysis says U.S. stock markets are closed for roughly 70% of weekly hours. In that interval, equity perpetuals can be priced and liquidated against thin crypto-market index prices before the tokenized-equity hedge can be monetized.

That makes the trade’s market neutrality path-dependent. A single venue can simplify execution, yet it cannot guarantee aligned marks or enough executable depth in the long tokenized asset when the short perpetual comes under margin pressure. The position may therefore incur a forced loss even if the underlying stock later settles in a way consistent with the hedge.

The historical figures are mixed rather than conclusive. Across 37 matched earnings events, the framework recorded average hedged movement of 20.3 basis points against average underlying gaps of 9.9%; the worst event was an 81.7-basis-point loss. Across 400 weekend and holiday windows, average divergence was 14.9 basis points. The average mismatch was limited, but the backtest does not establish stress resilience: USDe’s position sizing, margin and liquidity would have to withstand an unusually poor sequence without undermining its collateral position.

Chart showing realized annualized funding carry for Binance-approved tokenized-equity basis-trade names, including negative carry for SPY and SKHY. — Source: Ethena Governance / Kairos Research

bStocks add issuer and custody exposure to USDe’s collateral stack

The long leg also differs from holding an ordinary share through a traditional broker. Binance says bStocks are certificates issued by BTech Holdings, a Binance-group affiliate, that represent an interest in underlying securities held by the issuer. Holders do not directly own the underlying stock.

That arrangement adds a separate set of exposures to the trading calculation. A USDe backing strategy using bStocks would depend not only on the behavior of an equity perpetual and the price of the underlying share, but also on the issuer structure, custody of the referenced securities, treatment of corporate actions and concentration around the Binance-linked arrangement. Binance’s product description makes clear that the token is a certificate structure rather than direct equity ownership.

That does not make the assets unusable as collateral. It does mean the proposed basis trade combines several risks often considered separately: funding variability, off-hours mark and liquidation risk, exchange concentration, and issuer-and-custody exposure in the tokenized stock itself. The backtests indicate that hedged price divergence has generally been contained, but they also show an 81.7-basis-point worst earnings-event loss before the strategy confronts the additional constraints of a certificate-based collateral instrument.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.