Ethena continues to deepen its ties to traditional finance, announcing a deal with asset manager Janus Henderson that includes a strategic investment in the protocol’s governance token.
Under the agreement, Ethena will allocate and help distribute Janus Henderson’s tokenized collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds, the protocol said in a Tuesday X article.
Meanwhile, Janus Henderson, with $480 billion in assets under management, has made a strategic investment in Ethena’s ENA token and plans to use USDe, Ethena’s yield-bearing synthetic dollar, as part of its cash treasury management strategy, according to an announcement on Thursday.
The companies are also exploring ways to offer USDe to Janus Henderson clients through exchange-traded investment products.
The ENA jumped 5% after the announcement before paring its gains. It is down 8% in the past 24 hours as crypto markets have slipped.
“We are really excited about this possibility,” Nick Cherney, head of innovation at Janus Henderson Investors, told Coindesk in a message. “We strongly believe that innovation in blockchain is driven by the challenge community and that we must continue to forge partnerships with leading founders and protocols.”
The deal continues a trend of traditional financial companies increasingly adopting and supporting decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. Earlier this year, BlackRock (BLK) expanded its tokenized money market fund through a partnership with Uniswap and also invested an undisclosed amount in the decentralized exchange’s UNI token, while Apollo Global Management (APO) struck a deal with lending protocol Morpho to bring tokenized private credit assets online and invest in the protocol’s governance token.
Last week, Coinbase Ventures revealed its first investment in Ethena and announced a partnership that will bring Ethena products to Coinbase’s more than 100 million users. Separately, Ethena has expanded its relationship with crypto bank Anchorage Digital to support institutional lending activity through Anchorage’s Atlas collateral management platform.
Ethena has become one of the largest decentralized finance protocols by offering yield through its USDe token, which combines stablecoin demand with derivatives-based hedging strategies. After reaching around $15 billion in assets during last year’s market rally, the protocol currently manages around $5 billion as crypto markets continue to recover from a prolonged downturn.
“Ethena has proven that even now it is possible to innovate in the stablecoin space, and we continue to see huge opportunities in their business,” added Cherney of Janus Henderson.
