Ethena plans to expand USDe’s collateral backing into equity perpetuals, also described as real-world asset (RWA) tokenization perps, in the next few weeks. The project said open interest in equity perps has grown tenfold to $6 billion since March and that the market could become 100 times larger, creating a scalable basis yield opportunity less tied to crypto-market cycles. The underlying asset base exceeds $150 trillion, compared with about $2.5 trillion for crypto, making the move the largest potential extension of USDe’s basis allocation to date. Ethena expects RWA perpetuals to overtake crypto-based allocations in USDe’s backing within 12 to 24 months. Currently, liquid stablecoins such as USDT and USDC account for 32% of backing, while DeFi lending (decentralized finance borrowing and lending) represents 31% through Aave and Morpho. The strategy follows an earlier expansion into traditional credit powered by Janus Henderson, which now represents 12% of backing. Ethena founder Guy Young said the project waited for deeper liquidity and a usable data history before scaling into the nascent market. He also called the segment one of the very few 100x opportunities left and said it could exceed global crypto trading volume and open interest within 24 months. USDe’s basis strategy seeks to capture the spread between an asset’s spot price and its perpetual futures contract, but the source notes that performance is cyclical: supply reached nearly $15 billion during the 2024-2025 bull run, with more than 80% in yield, before falling to $4 billion and producing yield below 0% during the crypto winter. USDe offered a 1.6% spread over short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, before accounting for DeFi security risks. Whether the diversification will increase demand for USDe remains uncertain.