USDe Seeks Returns From Binance’s $2.9B Equity Futures Pool

Ethena has added tokenized U.S. equities and equity perpetual futures to the basis-trading strategy that backs part of USDe, extending a funding model previously confined to crypto markets into listed stocks. Under the new setup, Binance bStocks serve as the tokenized spot collateral while Binance equity perpetual futures provide the offsetting hedge, following a framework the Ethena Risk Committee approved for tokenized-equity basis trades.

How Ethena’s Tokenized-Equity Basis Trade Works

The mechanics mirror what Ethena has run in crypto since USDe’s launch: hold a spot asset, short the corresponding perpetual, and collect the funding differential between the two markets. Here, the spot leg is a Binance bStock, and the hedge is a short position in Binance’s matching equity perpetual contract, so gains or losses in the tokenized stock are meant to be absorbed by the derivatives position, leaving the basis between the two markets as the primary return driver rather than the stock’s direction.

bStocks represent interests in securities held by issuer BTech Holdings Limited, and eligible users can convert the tokens into the corresponding securities where applicable laws permit. Binance launched the first bStocks in June with tokenized versions of Nvidia, Tesla, Circle, Micron and Sandisk, describing the assets as backed 1:1 by the underlying shares – though unlike direct share ownership, bStocks carry no voting rights.

The numbers behind the trade are notable on both sides. Binance carried more than $2.9 billion in open interest across equity perpetual futures, based on figures Ethena provided, with that open interest growing at a compound monthly rate of 105% this year. The equity basis itself averaged an annualized 3.56% over the past six months, according to the same Ethena-supplied data – a return profile the protocol is now attempting to capture the same way it built its Binance perpetual-contract pricing exposure in crypto.

Ethena’s Expansion Meets a Growing Equity-Market Segment

Ethena’s stated rationale is scale. The protocol expects the opportunity in equity perpetual markets to eventually become significantly larger than the crypto perpetual market it has traded since inception, and the timing lines up with rapid growth in tokenized equities across Binance’s platform.

Binance bStocks reached roughly $610.6 million in value by August, putting the product ahead of xStocks as the second-largest tokenized-stock issuer in the dataset tracked by Token Terminal, with Ondo Finance still the largest issuer at that point. The broader tokenized-stock market Token Terminal tracks sat near $2.7 billion in August, up from roughly $80 million a year earlier – a growth curve that has also shown up in derivatives volume, with Binance’s TradFi perpetual futures generating approximately $433.4 billion in August trading volume, of which about $342.9 billion came from equity-linked contracts, according to figures previously reported by The Block.

That liquidity buildout followed Binance opening access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs for eligible users outside the United States in June, with bStocks arriving later that month as the tokenized layer of the broader equity push. It’s the same infrastructure expansion covered in earlier reporting on stock perpetuals and the regulatory questions surrounding equity-linked derivatives, and it’s the pool of liquidity Ethena is now tapping directly.

Risk Committee Framework and Structural Considerations

The allocation doesn’t sit outside Ethena’s existing governance process. The Ethena Risk Committee approved a specific framework for adding tokenized-equity basis trades to the protocol’s allocation strategy before this expansion moved forward, and the equity positions will operate inside that same risk structure as Ethena begins deploying the basis trade outside crypto assets.

The structural trade-off is worth noting plainly: bStocks give holders economic exposure to the linked securities and, where permitted, a conversion path into the underlying shares, but they do not confer the voting rights that come with direct stock ownership. That’s a standard feature of tokenized-equity products generally, not a defect unique to Ethena’s implementation, but it’s a meaningful distinction for anyone treating the underlying collateral as equivalent to holding the stock outright.

USDe’s Backing Has Already Diversified

The equity allocation extends a shift that’s been underway for months. USDe’s backing model has moved well beyond its original crypto basis trades, adding DeFi lending, liquid stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets and institutional lending alongside the legacy crypto positions.

As of early July, crypto basis positions accounted for roughly $39 million, or about 1%, of USDe’s backing portfolio – a sharp contrast to DeFi lending’s 46% share, liquid stablecoins at 35%, and tokenized real-world assets at 11.2% at that same snapshot. Institutional lending added another $310 million, or roughly 6.9% of backing, a figure that grew after Ethena and FalconX launched a $1 billion facility in August allowing USDe-backing assets to finance overcollateralized loans to institutional borrowers, building on the momentum tracked in Ethena’s recent USDe payments beta launch and other product expansion.

What Comes Next

Ethena’s own framing is that equity perpetuals represent a market opportunity that could eventually dwarf the crypto perpetual space the protocol has traded from the start, though that’s a forward-looking expectation rather than a settled outcome. Binance Head of Exchange and Trading Shunyet Jan characterized the growing liquidity around bStocks and equity perpetuals as creating expanding use cases for both products, a view consistent with the open-interest growth Ethena cited in its own figures.

For now, the equity allocation remains bounded by the Risk Committee’s approved framework, and its actual contribution to USDe’s backing composition will only become clear in future governance disclosures. Whether the 3.56% annualized basis holds up as more capital chases the same trade – or compresses the way basis returns typically do once a strategy scales – is the question the market will be forced to price in the months ahead.

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