ENA, the governance token of synthetic dollar protocol Ethena, climbed to a new local high of $0.09 this week as the broader market turned bullish, with the rally coinciding with a $114 million jump in the protocol's total value locked between August 18 and the time of writing. Ethena's TVL now stands at $4.398 billion, though that gain is modest set against a protocol of that size.
The more striking figure sits underneath the TVL number. Net deposits into Ethena, tracked by Artemis, hit a record $214 million even as daily active users fell to roughly 1,400 — down 48% from the 2,700 users the protocol counted on August 7. Ethena, in other words, attracted more money without attracting more people, a divergence that raises the question of whether the rally reflects broadening demand or a smaller group of large holders concentrating capital.
Revenue Tells a Softer Story
Ethena's own revenue trajectory complicates the bullish read further. The protocol has earned $136,000 so far in August's first 19 days, a steep drop from the $709,000 it generated in May. Seven-day fees stand at $3.67 million, but the most recent 24-hour figure was just $84.11 — a level that suggests fee generation has slowed sharply even as deposits climb.
That gap matters because Ethena's yield engine runs on funding-rate income from its delta-neutral basis trade: it holds staked ETH and liquid restaking collateral long while shorting an equivalent notional in ETH perpetual futures, and stakers of sUSDe collect the funding payments and staking yield that result. When funding compresses, so does the yield that has been Ethena's main selling point against plainer, T-bill-backed stablecoins — sUSDe's 7-day trailing APY had already fallen to roughly 7.1% by June, down from 9.4% in April, as perpetual funding cooled through the second quarter.
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Where ENA Sits in the Synthetic Dollar Market
Ethena's USDe remains the largest crypto-collateralized synthetic dollar behind Sky's USDS, with roughly $5.5-6 billion in supply. The protocol activated a fee switch earlier this year that now directs 10-20% of protocol revenue to sENA stakers, a mechanism designed to give ENA holders a more direct claim on the funding income the delta-neutral strategy generates — though that same mechanism means ENA's appeal is tied tightly to funding-rate conditions that have already cooled once this year.
For now, the record deposit figure is enough to keep ENA's price elevated. Whether it holds depends on whether new capital keeps arriving even as the yield that originally attracted it continues to shrink.
