Ethena plans major expansion with Telegram payments and institution-focused iUSDe token in bid to become a ‘neobank’

Synthetic stablecoin protocol Ethena is looking to become a “neobank” — a traditional financial institution operating entirely online — according to an announcement on Friday.

The protocol, launched in early 2024, manages the third-largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDe. With a market capitalization of over $6 billion, it is one of the fastest-growing blockchain projects ever. 

According to a blog post , Ethena accounted for approximately 85% of onchain USD asset growth in 2024, excluding rival stablecoins USDT and USDC. Additionally, in December, the protocol hit an annualized run-rate (ARR) of over $1.2 billion, making it the second-fastest crypto startup to reach $100 million in revenue after Solana-based Pump.fun.

Ethena is now looking to parlay this success and begin eating into traditional finance, protocol founder @leptokurtic_ , who also goes by the mononymous initial “G,” wrote. In 2025, the team plans to launch a new dollar savings product as well as a native FinTech/web2 payment solution on the messaging platform Telegram.

The move comes as Ethena has been expanding its suite of products beyond its core USDe synthetic dollar, which introduced a novel trading mechanism to maintain its peg to the greenback. Last month, the project launched a fiat-backed stablecoin called USDtb , backed by U.S. Treasurys by way of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.

“The next step of Ethena’s growth will primarily be driven by exporting the product into traditional finance,” G wrote. “The infrastructure is now in place, the regulatory pathway for the product in TradFi is clear, and the size of opportunity dwarfs anything we have seen within crypto so far.”

G said that Ethena has become “a crucial building block” throughout DeFi and is beginning to penetrate “CeFi markets.” For instance, algorithmic stablecoin issuers, including Frax, Sky and Usual, have integrated USDe into their offerings. G added that USDe is integrated with about 60% of centralized exchanges, where it has become a popular collateral asset for derivatives trading. 

The “next logical step” for the fast-growing protocol is to break into larger, regulated capital markets. In Q1 2025, Ethena plans to introduce a new product called iUSDe, its attempt to “export sUSDe” to legacy finance, including asset managers, ETFs, prime brokers, as well as private credit funds and investment trusts.

(Although G wrote he is waiting to name iUSDe’s “initial TradFi distribution partners,” crypto mainstays, including BlackRock, Fidelity and Franklin Templeton, are mentioned in an embedded chart.)

How iUSDe works

iUSDe is “identical” to sUSDe, 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. 

Financial institutions will be able to gain exposure to the token “without ever needing to touch crypto rails” by purchasing shares in special purpose vehicles (SPVs) set up by regulated investment managers to oversee the fund. 

USDe, which can only be redeemed and minted by whitelisted users, maintains its peg to the dollar primarily through a crypto carry trade. In short, Ethena deploys an arbitrage strategy between the spot and future prices of ETH based on the theory the prices typically converge as futures contracts approach.

Depending on market conditions, Ethena will short ETH futures while buying spot ETH (or vice versa) and pocket the difference. To this extent, G notes that USDe offers exposure to “crypto native rates,” which have shown a “weak negative correlation to rates in legacy finance.” Ethena accounts for around 7% of open futures interest, G said.

Because USDe is pegged to the dollar, financial firms can “price iUSDe as a spread to risk-free rates” (i.e., U.S. Treasury yields). “Combining the only two sources of scalable crypto-native return into a dollar product gives simple access to these allocators within traditional finance to access and harvest the excess returns of crypto in a single asset,” G argues. 

In other words, TradFi can treat iUSDe as a financial instrument similar to bonds or other fixed-income securities with crypto-specific returns. G notes there is an added benefit in that sUSDe protocol returns are negatively correlated to real rates — “Almost no other debt product in legacy finance exhibits the same property,” he said.

“The size of the basis within the crypto markets is not well understood,” G wrote. “It is by far the largest potential source of real cash flow in the entire space and has increased more than 3x in the year since Ethena launched. Importantly, this is sufficient scale to interest traditional finance as an opportunity.”

“A superior risk adjusted dollar yield produced by crypto native sources is the type of product which brings billions of dollars of flows out of the old system, and into the internet system,” G added.

Becoming a neobank

As part of Ethena’s expanded scope, the project also aims to introduce a payments-focused product. G noted that Ethena found a product market fit for USDe as a savings tool and form of collateral on crypto exchanges but is currently outcompeted by Tether as a store of value and payment method. 

To that end, Ethena is building a Telegram app that leverages the TON blockchain and Apple Pay. G said this will enable “direct mobile tap payments” for Telegram’s estimated one billion users.

This is in addition to previously announced USDe products, Ethereal and Derive, which are expected to debut in the coming month. Ethereal is a crypto spot and perpetuals exchange built as a bespoke appchain that maintains its order book ledger using sUSDe. Derive is a protocol that offers onchain options and structured products using sUSDe collateral. 

Additionally, Ethena plans to unveil USDtb exchange integrations throughout January. Another yield-bearing asset, USDtb, is designed to "share economics" with its distribution partners, thereby incentivizing platforms like centralized exchanges to embed the product and offer it to their users, G said. 

“2024 was our first year with a live product where we built the foundation to set ourselves up for this precise confluence of macroeconomic tailwinds,” G wrote. “In 2025 we will disrupt money on a scale far beyond what you have seen so far.”