The first airdrop project of the Ethena ecosystem, Ethereal, can it replicate the miracle of Hyperliquid?

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

Ethena (ENA) may be one of the most outstanding tokens in recent times.

According to Bitget market data, since hitting a low of 0.194 USDT at the beginning of September, ENA has rebounded to 1.33 USDT yesterday, achieving nearly a 600% increase over the past two months.

There are various reasons for this. For instance, the rising funding rates in the bull market have significantly boosted Ethena's protocol revenue, and the supply of USDe has also increased noticeably; additionally, the Trump family project World Liberty has supported ENA purchases; there are expectations for the ENA fee switch promoted by Wintermute to be activated; coupled with direct cooperation with BlackRock BUIDL to launch a new stablecoin product USDtb… Furthermore, the expectation of airdrops for holding and staking ENA is also seen as a key reason for the token's continued rise.

Previously, two major projects with a high business correlation to USDe, Ethereal and Derive (formerly Lyra), have officially announced airdrops for sENA holders (i.e., ENA stakers), with Ethereal planning to airdrop 15% of its token supply and Derive planning to airdrop 5% of its token supply. Currently, users holding sENA on-chain can directly check the "mining" status of these two projects on the Ethena homepage.

Last week, Ethereal held a community conference call, outlining Ethereal's roadmap, features, advantages, and airdrop situation. Notably, the developers of Ethereal have clearly taken notice of the impressive performance of another strong project, Hyperliquid, and mentioned that Ethereal aims to build a "one-stop trading service" similar to Hyperliquid.

Ethereal: The First Airdrop Project in the Ethena Ecosystem

Ethereal made its debut on September 30 this year.

At that time, Ethereal founder Fells initiated a proposal at Ethena, suggesting the construction of an on-chain trading venue supporting spot and derivatives trading around USDe. On one hand, Ethena could profit from the utility expansion of USDe, while on the other hand, Ethereal could seize an ecological hub position early in USDe's growth.

From an architectural perspective, Ethereal will serve as a Layer 3 based on the Ethena network; from a business perspective, Ethereal will not only be equipped with a complete trading system but will also support the deployment of other USDe-related applications (such as lending).

To gain support from the Ethena community and deepen the binding relationship, Ethereal stated in its initial proposal that it would allocate 15% of its tokens for airdrops to ENA stakers.

Latest Updates: Learning from Hyperliquid

In the latest community conference call, Ethereal team members emphasized Hyperliquid, believing that the key factor to the project's success lies in "providing a complete trading service," addressing the hidden pain points of users needing to switch between different applications for different operations, thus better retaining users and funds.

In this regard, Ethereal founder Fells redefined Ethereal's positioning as "a one-stop product supporting all DeFi operations," where users can engage in spot or contract trading, rate arbitrage, lending, options, and even prediction operations, while leveraging sUSDe (staked USDe) to obtain stable yield income.

Fells added that he hopes to create a user experience for Ethereal similar to that of a CEX platform, while Ethereal will also maintain complete non-custodial and decentralized features. For example, Ethereal will abstract away the gas payment process through specific designs, so users do not need to sign each transaction or pay gas fees.

Timeline: Mainnet Launch in Q1

According to the timeline mentioned in the conference call, Ethereal's upcoming development schedule is as follows:

• Testnet release: expected next month;
• Testnet suspension;
• Mainnet launch: expected in the first quarter of 2025;

Fells also mentioned that Ethereal's concrete features will be rolled out in phases, starting with USDe perpetual contract trading, followed by a combination margin model, lending, and spot trading, with related services likely to be launched in the first half of 2025. Additionally, Ethereal will initially support trading for only a few blue-chip tokens, and after accumulating users and liquidity, new trading pairs will be launched weekly.

Expansion of Ethena's Ecosystem

The ecosystem of Ethena is rapidly expanding. In addition to Ethereal mentioned in this article, the derivatives project Derive, which originated from the options protocol Lyra, will also issue tokens in the first quarter of next year and will airdrop 5% of its tokens to sENA holders.

Benefiting from the positive sentiment of the bull market, the funding rates in the contract market remain high, driving up the yields of the Ethena protocol itself and sUSDe. As of the time of writing, the supply of USDe has approached the 6 billion USD mark, with a real-time yield of 27%.

Meanwhile, the new stablecoin product USDtb launched in cooperation with BlackRock BUIDL has also filled the biggest gap for Ethena—during negative rate periods, the protocol itself and sUSDe would temporarily show negative yields. The structure of USDtb is similar to traditional RWA-type stablecoins, with its stability supported by reserve assets, and its yield coming from treasury bond rates. In the future, as the supply of this stablecoin increases, Ethena will gain a reliable hedging window during negative rate periods or when rate yields fall below treasury yields, thus addressing the protocol's vulnerability to negative rates.

Notable figure Arthur Hayes, founder of BitMEX, predicted earlier this year that "USDe will surpass USDT to become the largest dollar stablecoin." Although there is still a significant gap in supply scale between the two, considering Ethena's current sustained high yields and rapid ecosystem expansion, this is not impossible. If this expectation is realized, early projects like Ethereal that have seized ecological hub positions will undoubtedly benefit, further creating value feedback for ENA.