Problem: Crypto-Native Money

Crypto needs a decentralized base money asset, and the world has no access to a globally accessible and censorship-resistant means of holding capital.

Ethena has been built to address the largest and most obvious immediate need within crypto. DeFi attempts to create a parallel financial system, yet stablecoins are the most important financial instrument and remain completely tethered to, and reliant upon, traditional banking infrastructure. Ethena aims to provide a scalable crypto-native form of money to enable a truly independent financial system.

Crypto can no longer depend on traditional infrastructure for stablecoins

For any functional truly independent financial system to work at scale, a reasonably stable asset not reliant on legacy banking infrastructure is required for both transactional money as well providing the core base asset for funding. Without an independent and reasonably stable reserve asset, both centralized & decentralized order books are inherently fragile.

Centralized Exchanges are in desperate need of a reliable and transparent asset for their order books, and DeFi faces ongoing existential risk by relying on USDC or RWAs with a centralized kill-switch. Reducing the reliance on the traditional banking system for the role stablecoin infrastructure plays in the space is the single most important issue facing crypto today.

8 billion people have no access to a dollar denominated means of storing capital

Whilst US citizens have access to their own $30 trillion treasury market, individuals in the rest of the world do not have permissionless access or an ability to generate a yield on a dollar denominated means of preserving capital.

User demand for existing stablecoins is already provable and enormous at $150 billion+ despite a typical “return-free" risk profile. A substantially equivalent product that provides permissionless value accrual is the largest market opportunity that crypto can provide for individuals all over the world - larger than either a volatile store of value or fiat, or RWA-backed stablecoins as they currently exist.

The most important financial instrument in the real world - a dollar denominated means of capital preservation - is a basic product everyone should have the ability to access without permission.