Ethena Labs launches ENA token airdrop for USDe holders.
ENA token surges 19% in value, hitting an all-time high.
Ethena Labs, a prominent player in decentralized finance (DeFi), has initiated the distribution of its new governance token (ENA) through an airdrop program. The announcement, made in a recent post, invited holders of the USDe token to claim their portion of the airdrop, which amounts to 750 million ENA tokens, constituting 5% of the total supply. This move follows the successful launch of Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, which has garnered significant attention within the DeFi space.
In the past 24 hours, ENA has witnessed a notable surge of 19%, reaching $0.8197, with a corresponding increase in market capitalization to $1.1 billion, marking an high of $0.8987. Ethena plans to introduce new incentives as part of the next phase of the airdrop campaign, as disclosed in a recent blog post.
ENA Price Chart, Source: TradingView
USDe, touted as a “synthetic dollar,” offers attractive yields to investors by leveraging ether liquid staking tokens and short ether (ETH) perpetual futures positions in the derivatives market to maintain a target price around $1. The largest recipient of the Ethena Labs airdrop, identified as wallet 0xb56, received 3.3 million ENA tokens worth approximately $1.96 million, according to on-chain data analysis by Arkham Intelligence.
The airdrop, which commenced on April 2, saw the distribution of $450 million worth of ENA tokens among eligible wallets, with the entire allocation completed by 7:17 am UTC. Following the launch of the airdrop claim page, the Ethena token was promptly listed for trading on major centralized crypto exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, KuCoin, HTX, MEXC, and BitMart.
Despite the success, concerns arose when a fake ENA token was exploited for $290,000 worth of BNB on March 29. However, it’s crucial to note that the genuine Ethena token remained unaffected by the incident, reassuring users of its security measures.