Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), said it has backed Ethena (ENA), purchasing the protocol’s token on the open market as the two companies prepare to launch a new on-chain savings product for the exchange’s more than 100 million users.
Ethena announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with Coinbase to expand its on-chain finance and savings offerings, with the first initiative set to launch next week.
“I’m excited to partner with Coinbase for the first time to support their dollar savings products,” Ethena founder Guy Young said in an article on
As part of the deal, Coinbase said it was already the primary custodian, wallet provider and perpetual venue for Ethena, while the protocol’s USDe yield token would be distributed across the core network and the “wider network.” [Coinbase] ecosystem.”
ENA, Ethena’s governance token, jumped 20% after the news before paring its gains. The token is up 3% in the past 24 hours despite the broader crypto market downturn.
This investment marks notable support from Coinbase as Ethena looks to expand beyond crypto-native users. Ethena has emerged as one of the fastest growing crypto protocols, combining the demand for stablecoins with derivatives-based funding strategies to provide yield to investors in tokenized form. The protocol’s assets reached $15 billion at the October market peak, but have since declined to $5.3 billion as demand and returns declined amid the crypto downturn.
The announcement comes as lawmakers continue to debate the CLARITY Act, a market structure bill that could provide a clearer regulatory framework for crypto products in the United States. Young said the legislation could create additional tailwinds for on-chain native assets such as USDe, Ethena’s synthetic dollar token.
Tapping into Coinbase’s user base
Although neither company has disclosed details of the upcoming product, investors have speculated that the partnership could significantly expand Ethena’s distribution.
Access to Coinbase’s user base could provide a new source of capital as the protocol seeks to expand beyond decentralized finance to major cryptocurrency brokerage platforms.
Yan Liberman, managing partner at Delphi Ventures, an investor in Ethena, said the deal could potentially connect Coinbase’s USDC stablecoin ecosystem, worth around $19 billion, to Ethena’s yield-generating infrastructure.
“If sUSDe produces clear USDC benchmark rates, Coinbase can offer better USDC lending yields,” Liberman wrote on X. “Ethena gets more and cheaper funding than native DeFi alone.”
Expansion into the institutional credit market with Anchorage
Ethena is also moving deeper into institutional markets.
On Tuesday, protocol and crypto bank Anchorage Digital said it has expanded its partnership with Ethena to support institutional lending.
Under the deal, Anchorage will manage collateral for Ethena’s loan investments through its Atlas platform, allowing borrowers to hold their assets rather than move them on-chain.
The setup aims to make crypto-native lending more accessible to institutions that require regulated custody and compliance controls.
“Institutions want access to crypto-native capital, but not at the expense of custody, controls or operational rigor,” Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley said in a statement.
The announcement builds on an existing relationship between the companies. Anchorage Digital Bank is already the US issuer of Ethena’s USDtb stablecoin.
