If you immediately see similarities with UST, let's note the fundamental differences:
UST paid a 19.5% return on the Anchor protocol out of thin air, they simply printed new stables.
UST was backed by BTC. Do Kwon simply took BTC from investors and stored it to buy back UST in case of a drawdown.
🟢 USDe is not secured in the traditional sense. The developers open a delta-neutral position: short BTC on futures and long on spot. As a result, no matter where the price goes, the loss on one position is offset by the profit on the other.
🟢 By shorting you can earn profit at the funding rate. When it is positive, the longs pay the shorts. You can earn money yourself this way. For example, on Binance the standard funding rate is 0.01% every 8 hours. That is, you can receive about 11% per annum on your short. But the rate can either increase (when there are many more longs than shorts) or decrease (when there are more shorts than longs). For example, recently the BCH rate reached 0.1% (about 100% per annum).
🟢 Ethena earns on the funding rate + on staking (in the case of ETH) and pays income to stable holders. The main risk here is that someday the funding rate may become negative for a long time. The developers have not yet given a clear answer what to do in this case. There is also a risk that the exchange will block your account. And others.
