Ethena Selects Anchorage for Offchain Collateral in Institutional Lending Expansion
Anchorage Digital will manage collateral for Ethena’s institutional lending business through Atlas, as Ethena broadens USDe reserve strategy beyond perpetual futures and deepens its institutional credit push.
Ethena Labs has expanded its relationship with Anchorage Digital, which will serve as collateral manager for Ethena’s institutional lending activity through Anchorage’s Atlas Collateral Management platform. The arrangement allows Ethena to extend loans to institutions while keeping collateral custodied at Anchorage rather than moving it fully onchain. Atlas will monitor collateral and loan thresholds in real time, automate margin processes and execute rules-based actions. Anchorage Digital Bank already acts as the U.S. issuer of Ethena’s institutional-grade stablecoin, USDtb. Ethena said it began pivoting in April toward overcollateralized institutional lending as part of a broader overhaul of USDe reserves, a move aimed at reducing reliance on the perpetual futures basis trade that helps maintain USDe’s dollar peg.
- Overcollateralized institutional lending: A lending model in which borrowers post collateral worth more than the loan amount to reduce credit risk.
- Offchain collateral: Collateral held outside a blockchain protocol, typically with a custodian, rather than being moved fully onchain.
- Basis trade: A strategy that seeks to profit from the price gap between spot and futures markets and, in this case, is part of how USDe maintains its peg.