Ethena is extending the delta-neutral basis strategy behind its synthetic dollar USDe into equity perpetual futures, seeking funding yields several times higher than Bitcoin’s as it works to reverse a sharp 2026 contraction in supply. Equity perpetual open interest has climbed to about $6.2 billion from less than $1 billion in March, with recent average funding near 14% on Hyperliquid and 17.5% on Binance, versus Bitcoin perpetual funding of about 2.2% year-to-date through mid-August. Founder Guy Young called equity and commodity-linked perpetuals one of the protocol’s largest potential growth markets and said real-world-asset perpetual volume already rivaled or exceeded major crypto pairs on leading venues, projecting the segment could surpass crypto perpetuals within roughly two years. The move would widen the pool of assets available to USDe’s basis book from a crypto market of about $2.5 trillion toward more than $120 trillion of equities, with initial deployments planned over coming weeks on venues where Ethena already trades crypto. USDe hovered near $4.04 billion, less than one-third of its roughly $15 billion peak, after crypto basis positions fell to around 13% of backing and reserves shifted toward DeFi lending, liquid stablecoins, real-world assets and institutional credit. A governance proposal dated August 27 would begin routing protocol revenue into ENA buybacks once USDe reaches $7.5 billion, scaling the share at higher supply tiers, while Ethena continues winding down its HyENA Hyperliquid deployer and maintains a $1 billion FalconX institutional credit facility secured in mid-August 2026.