Perhaps the hottest thing in the DeFi field yesterday was the Ethena airdrop. After the airdrop tokens were opened for claiming, Binance launched Ethena (ENA) on its financial management, flash exchange, leverage, and contracts. Within one hour of opening, the investment volume exceeded 19 million BNB. The ENA token rose by more than 30% in one day, directly entering the billion-dollar market value ranks.
Then, Ethena announced that the second season "Sats" event Epoch 1 has been launched. Users can deposit USDe to earn Sats. The new Pendle pool on Mantle is capped at $100 million and will receive additional Eigenlayer points. The existing USDe Pendle pool on the ETH mainnet is also capped at $100 million. Existing users who deposit funds into the pool will receive an additional 20% reward.
MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen (@RuneKek) deposited 5.66 million USDT to Ethena 16 hours ago and minted 5.655 million USDe. This is Rune's first participation in Ethena. Not only that, MakerDAO is considering allocating 600 million DAI to USDe and staking USDe (sUSDe) through the DeFi lending protocol Morpho Labs.
However, just when everything seemed to be going smoothly, some different voices emerged within the community. Marc ( @lemiscate ), the founder of Aavechan, published a tweet criticizing the recklessness of certain DeFi practices, especially pointing out that $100 million DAI, accounting for 20% of its total supply, was invested in "an untested" protocol (Ethena) without any risk mitigation measures, and the problem of weak oracles appeared not long ago. Marc believes that this treatment of assets that are extremely vulnerable to market conditions is extremely reckless, and announced that he will propose to reduce the loan-to-value ratio of DAI at Aave.
We all know that in the cryptocurrency space, stablecoins are considered one of the most important tools. Whether it is a centralized or decentralized trading platform, whether it is a spot or futures market, most transactions are denominated in stablecoins. Stablecoins have completed more than $12 trillion in settlements on the chain, becoming one of the top five assets in the DeFi field, accounting for more than 40% of the total value locked (TVL), and are by far the most widely used asset in the decentralized currency market.
As a stablecoin, USDe hopes to provide scalability by using derivatives to improve capital utilization. Under Ethena's design, USDe can expand while maintaining capital efficiency, because through equal short positions, the pledged ETH assets can be perfectly hedged, so that only 1:1 "pledge" is required to create synthetic dollars.
Marc also used a metaphor to explain the importance of risk management when using USDe: If you add 5 cl of gin to your cocktail, you may have a good night; but if you drink 3 bottles of gin, you may end up "with the toilet". This metaphor emphasizes the importance of proper risk management and setting a reasonable upper limit size in DeFi projects.
"ENA/USDe, smells like LUNA/UST"
Analyst Duo Nine (@DU 09 BTC) further pointed out directly that MakerDAO is "printing money for free" and may eventually cost ordinary investors: "They issued 100 million DAI, which can only be borrowed by using USDe/sUSDe as collateral. It is a huge cost for users and a huge profit for Maker, with an annualized rate of return of 66% for 100 million!"
In Duo Nine’s view, it is only a matter of time before USDe breaks free. The bigger the bubble, the greater the probability of this happening. Ethena’s rapid growth could pose a systemic risk to everyone. USDe, in particular, has not been tested in a bear market, and once billions of dollars are involved, the risk becomes particularly prominent.
"MakerDAO is taking advantage of the greed of users who are looking for higher annualized returns on USDe. They don't care, and they will use billions of dollars to fuel this greed. Maker makes huge profits, and USDe's market value will continue to soar." Duo Nine pointed out a potential trap in its tweet: USDe's market value is about $10 billion, of which $2 billion is Maker's Liability. If USDe depegs, panic and liquidation begin, Maker will be the first to sell USDe and recover funds to keep their profits and principal, while users who borrow DAI with USDe and sUSDe on Morpho will be liquidated soon.
He therefore called on all the big players in Ethena to show some restraint and build for the long term.
With the precedent of Luna, the possibility of algorithmic stablecoin decoupling and the potential risks of re-hypothecation have also worried some observers. In the eyes of some community members, all this really looks like Luna. Many people are worried that the next DeFi black swan event may happen to an original stablecoin protocol that has improperly handled risk management, but we also hope that this prediction is wrong. After all, no one wants to experience Luna again.
