Ethena Labs, the developer of the decentralized stablecoin protocol Ethena, is working on a new stablecoin backed by a tokenized fund by a major Bitcoin (BTC) investor, BlackRock.

Ethena Labs took to X on Sept. 26 to officially announce its new stablecoin project, UStb (USTB), which will be built in partnership with BlackRock and the digital securities platform Securitize.

The stablecoin will be backed by BlackRock’s tokenized BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), which offers a stable value of $1 per token.

The upcoming UStb stablecoin will be a separate fiat stablecoin product alongside USDe (USDE), a synthetic dollar stablecoin issued by Ethena in February 2024.

“This will exist as an isolated product separate from USDe offering users and exchange partners a new product with a differentiated risk profile to USDe,” Ethena Labs stated.

USDe can benefit from UStb during periods of weak funding conditions

In the announcement, Ethena Labs mentioned that the community has been increasingly concerned over USDe’s response to negative funding rate environments.

“Despite bearish conditions over the last six months, Ethena’s USDe has not endured a single week of negative funding,” Ethena Labs noted. According to the developer, the addition of UStb could help resolve this issue of USDe. Ethena Labs wrote:

“Nevertheless, if required USDe backing composition can dynamically adjusts between basis positions and liquid stable products in different interest rate environments and USDe can benefit from incorporating UStb during periods of weak funding conditions.”

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.