Ethena aims to become a “neo bank”: a payment app on Telegram and a new synthetic stablecoin are planned for 2025

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Ethena, a well-known synthetic dollar protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain, concluded an excellent 2024 and is now thinking about the goals for the new year.

According to what was reported by the project team, in 2025 great changes are expected, with the introduction of a payment platform supported by Telegram.

The roadmap also includes the launch of a new stablecoin, iUSDe, which will play a crucial role in the expansion and establishment within the TradFi ecosystem.

Let’s delve deeper into the discussion below.

Ethena aims at TradFi: it wants to become a neo-bank with support on Telegram

According to what is reported in its own blog post, the decentralized protocol Ethena has planned to become a “neobank” during 2025.

The project, which last year attracted great interest from investors, now wants to become a traditional financial institution in all respects. The plan involves introducing a product focused on cryptographic payments, developed within the well-known social media Telegram.

In this regard, Ethena has come up with a Telegram app that, leveraging the TON blockchain and Apple Pay, allows “direct payments via mobile tap” for one billion users.

This move reflects the company’s desire to enter the fintech world with its own resources typical of the web3, revolutionizing the way in which one accesses virtual finance.

The founder of Ethena, known on X with the nickname “@leptokurtic_“, expressed his enthusiasm for the ambitious roadmap, citing the following:

“The next step in Ethena’s growth will be driven primarily by the export of the product into traditional finance. The infrastructure is now in place, the regulatory path for the product in TradFi is clear, and the size of the opportunity eclipses anything we have seen so far in the crypto sector”.

iUSDe: the new synthetic savings stablecoin dedicated to financial operators

In the first quarter of 2025, Ethena plans to introduce a new synthetic savings stablecoin, called iUSDe.

This is a cryptocurrency created to “export sUSDe” to the world of traditional financial operators, including asset managers, ETFs, prime brokers, and investment funds.

Technically, iUSDe represents a reward token, very similar to sUSDe, which users receive when they stake their USDe on Ethena.

Its value reflects parity with the US dollar, with the peg maintained through a crypto carry trade strategy. In practice, Ethena uses an arbitrage strategy between the spot and future prices of ETH based on the theory that prices generally converge as the future contracts approach.

The “wrapper” mechanism ensures that the resource can be used by TradFi entities, seizing greater opportunities from a more liquid and regulated sector.

With iUSDe, financial institutions will have the opportunity to be exposed to the yield logic of Ethena without having to come into close contact with cryptocurrencies.

Furthermore, the strict regulatory supervision to which these operators are subject implies that they will be able to invest in the protocol only through these parallel paths.

These companies can trade iUSDe as a financial instrument similar to bonds or other fixed-income securities with specific yields for cryptocurrencies.

As reported by the founder of Ethena:

“financial companies can evaluate the iUSDe as a spread on risk-free rates”.

Ethena expands its presence in DeFi

The decision of Ethena to target TradFi adds to the previously announced USDe products, Ethereal and Derive, which are expected to debut next month. The first is an app chain for spot and perpetual crypto trading, with an order book based on USDe. The second, on the other hand, is a protocol that offers on-chain options and structured products using stablecoin collateral.

As if that weren’t enough, just 3 weeks ago the project launched a new stable called USDtb, supported by US Treasury securities through the BUIDL fund by BlackRock.

This latest one presents itself as a 100% guaranteed stablecoin, with a collateralization approach that utilizes real assets and high-quality derivative instruments.

It doesn’t end here, in the last year Ethena has become a cornerstone of the entire DeFi sector, finding application even in the suburbs of CeFi.

As reported by its own founder, several issuers of algorithmic stablecoins, such as Frax, Sky, and Usual, have integrated USDe into their offerings.

This strengthens the presence of USDe with centralized exchanges, where it is held for 60% of the supply, finding a role as a collateral asset for trading derivatives.

The next step of the protocol is to enter larger and regulated capital markets, leveraging the popularity of Telegram.

Here is what was written about by @leptokurtic_”, regarding the success of Ethena marked in 2024;

“2024 was our first year with a live product in which we built the foundations to prepare for this precise confluence of favorable macroeconomic winds. In 2025, we will disrupt money on a scale well beyond what you have seen so far.”

Source: https://mirror.xyz/0x29a99F7Fe080F72223dAd48D5E1E86670a984326/zM601bYC8Tqhh2Yg5JbWdbwUVFSDBV_aV7ipxHoOFvM

The noticeable on-chain growth of the Ethena protocol

The Ethena protocol, as previously mentioned, experienced significant growth in 2024, making it a key component of the DeFi ecosystem.

The crypto USDe has reached the podium in the ranking of the largest stablecoins in the market, behind USDT and USDC with a capitalization of over 6 billion dollars.

In the past year, Ethena accounted for about 85% of the growth of USD on-chain assets in 2024, excluding the two major rivals.

In just one year, it has increased its TVL at a very fast pace, establishing itself as the eighth dApp according to DefiLlama data.

Furthermore, in December, the protocol reached an annualized run-rate (ARR) of over 1.2 billion dollars. We are talking about a figure that makes it the second fastest crypto startup ever to reach 100 million dollars in revenue after Pump.fun.