Ethena Targets 14%-17.5% Equity-Perp Funding as USDe Chases a $7.5 Billion Trigger

By Isaac • August 28, 2026 7:31 pm •

Ethena is preparing to push the strategy behind USDe into a much larger market: equity-linked perpetual futures.

The potential attraction is easy to see. Recent funding rates in equity perpetuals have reportedly averaged about 14% on Hyperliquid and 17.5% on Binance, while Bitcoin perpetual funding averaged just 2.2% this year through August 11.

Funding can change fast, but the gap explains why Ethena is looking beyond the crypto basis trade that helped USDe grow in the first place.

CryptoSlate reports that open interest in equity-linked perpetuals has climbed from less than $1 billion in March to roughly $6.2 billion, while Ethena founder Guy Young says real-world-asset perpetual volume exceeded half of crypto volume on Hyperliquid last