Ethena Just Paid Its Early Investors to Exit as ENA Nears 100% Rally
Ethena (ENA) jumped 11% after its Foundation purchased out seed buyers who bought after the October 2025 peak. The transfer capped a near-100% month-to-month rally as an ENA buyback vote went dwell.
The token has carried the identical weight since launch, with early investor tokens unlocking each month. That provide drip simply ended.
Ethena Buys Out Investors Who Sold After the Peak
The Ethena Foundation introduced the deal Thursday, indicating that they spent the previous two weeks shopping for locked tokens immediately from early backers. Each was initially allotted greater than 0.25% of ENA provide.
The Foundation break up these backers into two teams:
- Investors who bought any ENA after the October 10, 2025, peak had their locked tokens purchased out.
Only one pockets mentioned no.
- Investors who by no means bought bought a full-price provide.
None accepted.
“As a outcome, the buyers who’ve been promoting into the market throughout the related timeframe now maintain no unvested ENA which might be bought into the market sooner or later,” the Foundation wrote in its weblog.
Follow us on X to get the newest information as it occurs
The remainder of the investor calendar now ends early. All remaining investor tokens unlock on October 5, 2026, and the month-to-month calendar disappears. Team tokens keep locked on their unique schedules. Roughly 12% of provide stays locked, all of it staff, ecosystem, and Foundation holdings.
The stress this fixes was actual. Ethena released 171.88 million tokens in early August alone. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes bought 9.05 million ENA days earlier than that launch.
One massive holder sits exterior the deal. StablecoinX, an ENA treasury firm, nonetheless holds about 20% of provide below a separate lockup disclosed in SEC filings.
ENA Buyback Vote Ties the Fee Switch to USDe Growth
The charge swap is the second piece. A Snapshot governance vote, open by September 2, would ship protocol income into ENA purchases. Ethena’s Risk Committee has already authorised the design.
There is a catch. Buybacks solely begin as soon as USDe circulating provide reaches $7.5 billion. At that stage, 5% of protocol income buys ENA. The share scales up to 20% if provide reaches $20 billion.
USDe sits close to $4.6 billion as we speak, down from a 2025 peak of about $15 billion. So the swap stays off till provide climbs roughly $3 billion. The Foundation says it desires USDe above $100 billion inside 5 years.
Once that first threshold hits, 95% of web income paid to the Foundation funds the purchases. Each purchase will likely be tracked on Ethena’s public dashboard.
The playbook has precedent. Uniswap’s fee switch proposal despatched UNI to a two-month high final November.
Ethena additionally addressed a second outdated doubt. A Master Framework Agreement, due in October, palms protocol mental property and residual worth to tokenholders. Ethena Labs fairness buyers get neither. The Foundation says Labs fairness has by no means taken a greenback of protocol income.
Will the ENA Rally Hold?
ENA trades close to $0.155 after gaining 11% in 24 hours. The token is up 56.5% in per week and 84.6% over the previous 30 days. Its market cap stands close to $1.52 billion.
The bull case is easy. The sellers are gone, the unlock calendar dies in October, and a buyback pipeline is on the poll. The bear case is simply as clear. Buybacks keep off till USDe practically doubles, and StablecoinX’s 20% stake sits exterior the deal.
The Snapshot vote nonetheless wants quorum. From there, the sign to watch is USDe provide. Every greenback it climbs brings the ENA buyback swap nearer.
The submit Ethena Just Paid Its Early Investors to Exit as ENA Nears 100% Rally appeared first on BeInCrypto.
