Ramazan Eles 
Ethena Labs, a stablecoin project, has successfully raised over $4 million for its treasury within just two weeks of its launch.
The project’s stablecoin, USDe, aims to maintain a peg of $1 by shorting ether (ETH) futures and capitalizing on funding rates, which have surged over the past fortnight. According to @MacroMate8, head of growth at the firm, USDe generated an annualized yield of over 68% on deposits as of Friday. After distributing payouts to users, Ethena Labs could retain $4 million for its treasury, boosting the total to over $16 million from nearly $12 million.
With its remarkable earnings, Ethena has emerged as the third-largest revenue generator in the crypto market, trailing only the Tron and Ethereum blockchains.
Ethena’s impressive yields primarily stem from the elevated ether-future funding rates and staking ether to a validator, which currently yields less than 4% annually as of Friday.
Funding rates represent payouts to traders based on their positions—longs pay shorts when prices rise, borrowing capital to place larger bets, and vice versa.
Users have the option to deposit stablecoins like tether (USDT), frax (FRAX), dai (DAI), Curve USD (crvUSD), and mkUSD to acquire Ethena’s USDe, which can then be staked. Unstaking requires a seven-day period. Staked USDe tokens can also be supplied to other DeFi platforms to earn additional yields.
According to DefiLlama data, the total value locked on Ethena has surged to $833 million as of Friday, climbing from $300 million in mid-February following its public launch.