PANews reported on March 21 that according to the BaFin official website announcement, the German Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has halted Ethena GmbH's new business of issuing USDe stablecoins in Germany, citing significant organizational deficiencies and compliance violations in its MiCAR licensing process, including improper asset reserve management and failure to meet capital requirements.
BaFin has taken the following measures: freezing Ethena GmbH's asset reserves, restricting management's disposal rights over assets, closing related functions on its official website, and appointing a commissioner to supervise implementation. Additionally, BaFin suspects Ethena GmbH of illegally offering sUSDe security tokens without providing the necessary prospectus.
Currently, Ethena GmbH customers are temporarily unable to redeem USDe tokens, but secondary market trading remains unrestricted. So far, approximately 5.4 billion USDe tokens are in circulation. BaFin will continue to assess whether to completely reject its compliance license application under MiCAR.
