The synthetic dollar stablecoin protocol Ethena posted on the social platform X late yesterday (26) that Ethena will cooperate with the US asset tokenization company Securitize to issue a new stablecoin: UStb, which is fully supported by BlackRock's tokenized bond fund BUIDL.
What is UStb?
According to the Ethena announcement, UStb has the following features:
First, UStb operates in the same way as a general stablecoin, but the reserve assets of this stablecoin will be used to invest in BUIDL, a subsidiary of BlackRock;
In addition, UStb will be a completely independent product, aiming to provide users and exchanges with a new stablecoin option, but the risk characteristics of UStb are completely different from Ethena's current stablecoin USDe;
When market conditions are bad, UStb can help USDe better cope with market risks. For example, when Ethena deems the time right, Ethena can close USDe's hedging positions during negative funding rates and reallocate its supported assets to UStb to further reduce risks.
Finally, Ethena’s vision for UStb is that UStb can become a substitute for USDe and in the future can serve as a margin on centralized exchanges that support USDe, such as Bybit, Bitget, etc.
In the coming weeks, Ethena will release the official launch time and more details about UStb.
UStb mainly benefits from US Treasuries
Simply put, UStb can earn interest income from US debt through BlackRock's BUIDL.
As for USDe, its yield mainly comes from stETH staking profit + funding rate. Since the funding rate will become negative when the market is bearish, UStb can help it obtain more stable returns; but on the other hand, this also means that the return rate of USDe will tend to be more stable at that time, and it will not be as high as before when the market atmosphere was hot.
ENA jumps nearly 20%
Inspired by this positive news, Ethena's native token ENA rose last night and reached $0.37 before press time, with a 24-hour increase of 19.45%.
What is BlackRock BUIDL?
BUIDL is the first tokenized fund launched by BlackRock on Ethereum. It invests 100% of its total assets in cash, U.S. Treasury bonds and repurchase agreements, allowing investors to earn income while holding tokens on the blockchain.
Less than a month and a half after its launch, BUIDL’s market value reached $384 million. At the time of writing, its market value has exceeded $513 million, making it the largest tokenized U.S. Treasury bond fund.
