Coinbase Ventures buys ENA, partners with Ethena on USDe

Coinbase Ventures purchased ENA tokens on the open market and announced a partnership with Ethena to add the protocol’s USDe and sUSDe to the Coinbase app and Wallet. The firms announced the first joint growth initiative will begin next week and mentioned plans for deeper integration with USDC. The work targets Coinbase’s ecosystem of more than 100 million users.

The open-market purchase is Coinbase Ventures’ first investment in Ethena. The tokens were acquired at market prices rather than through a private sale with discounted pricing or token lockups.

Ethena operates a synthetic dollar protocol centered on USDe, a crypto-native dollar that generates yield through delta-neutral hedging strategies. Users stake into sUSDe, a yield-bearing instrument tied to USDe. sUSDe returns come from sources such as perpetual funding rates and other hedging and derivatives activity; these returns have historically averaged double-digit annual percentage yields.

Coinbase Ventures called Ethena “a critical player in onchain finance” and expressed interest in deeper collaboration and USDC integration.

ENA’s price rose roughly 10% to trade near $0.09 at the time of the report. The firms will test distribution and product placements to make USDe and sUSDe available to retail and institutional clients using Coinbase’s custody and compliance infrastructure.

Market participants will watch the growth initiative, any technical details on USDC integration, and how the products perform once offered to Coinbase users.