Ethena advances more than 21% after integration with exchange wallets

• Synthetic dollar protocol Ethena has integrated its reward program with four top exchanges, allowing users to earn a 20% bonus by staking USDe.
• Exchanges have seen massive withdrawals of ENA tokens since the launch of the Ethena season 2 staking rewards program.
• Bitwise President Teddy Fusaro says USDe risks are no where near that of UST/LUNA as he acknowledges its massive growth.

Ethena (ENA) surged 21% on Wednesday after it announced strategic partnerships with four top crypto exchanges to allow USDe staking and introduce ENA into its "Sat campaign." This increase comes despite the general crypto market downturn that has seen many altcoins trade in the red.

Read more: Ethena airdrop goes live as MarkerDAO proposes to allocate $600 million into USDe and sUSDe

Ethena partners with top crypto exchanges

Ethena Labs announced in an X post on Wednesday that it has integrated its app with Binance, Bybit, OKX and Bitget exchange wallets. With the new integration, users can lock their USDe synthetic dollar tokens for at least seven days to be eligible for a 20% boost, Ethena stated.

The exchanges also confirmed the integration via a series of X posts that revealed users could access the feature on their platforms. The recent move is part of Ethena's "Sat campaign," which kicked off with the ENA airdrop on April 2. Following ENA's airdrop, Ethena's ecosystem received increased attention from the crypto community as the token went live on several exchanges and broke into the top 100 within 24 hours of launching.

One week after its launch, ENA now ranks among the top 60 cryptocurrencies, boasting a market cap of more than $2.3 billion on Wednesday, according to data from CoinGecko. Ethena's total value locked (TVL) has also risen rapidly, hitting $2.27 billion on Wednesday.

Also read: Ethena's ENA airdrop successful as USDe token sparks debate in crypto community

Exchanges see massive ENA withdrawals

Another key part of the campaign that may have been responsible for ENA's recent rally is the integration of ENA into its reward program on Monday. "Users who lock ENA at a minimum of 50% of their total USDe holdings per wallet will receive a 50% increase in their rewards," Ethena said in an X post.

Read more: AI safety group proposes criminal liability on developers, tokens suffer steep declines in prices

Following the announcement, over 114 million ENA - equivalent to about $165 million - has been staked on Ethena over the past two days, according to on-chain data from Spot on Chain. This includes one whale withdrawing 6 million ENA from Binance and staking all of it on Wednesday, making the individual one of ENA's top stakers. Spot On Chain noted that the same person has previously staked 8.96 million USDe. 

Lookonchain’s data also agrees with this as it reveals that exchanges have seen massive withdrawals of ENA tokens since the rewards program announcement.

ENA may not be as risky as UST/LUNA

Despite the recent strides of Ethena, its delta hedging strategy for maintaining the peg of its USDe token to the US Dollar has faced criticism from key crypto community members, including Marc Zeller of Aave and Andre Cronje, co-founder of the Fantom Foundation. Some have compared its USDe token to the LUNA/UST crash in 2022.

However, Teddy Fusaro, President of Bitwise, acknowledges in an X post on Wednesday that while USDe may have some risks, they aren't of a similar high profile as that of UST/LUNA. He also noted that the massive growth of USDe since its launch may see it become "the fastest-growing USD-denominated asset in the history of crypto."