Perhaps the hottest thing in the DeFi field yesterday was the Ethena airdrop. After the airdrop token application was opened, Binance’s financial management, flash swap, leverage, and contracts were launched on Ethena (ENA). The amount of investment exceeded 19 million BNB within one hour of opening. The ENA token rose by more than 30% in one day, directly entering the billions Market capitalization ranks.
Then, Ethena announced that the second season of the Sats event Epoch 1 has started. Users can deposit USDe to earn Sats. The new Pendle pool on Mantle has a cap of US$100 million and will receive additional Eigenlayer points. The existing ones on the ETH mainnet The USDe Pendle pool is also capped at $100 million, and existing users who deposit funds into the pool will receive an additional 20% reward.
MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen (@RuneKek) deposited 5.66 million USDT into Ethena 16 hours ago and minted 5.655 million USDe. This is also the first time Rune has participated 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, the founder of Aavechan (@lemiscate) published a tweet criticizing the reckless behavior of certain DeFi practices, specifically pointing out that $100 million of DAI, which accounts for 20% of its total supply, was invested in an untested protocol (Ethena). No risk mitigation measures were taken, and the problem of weak oracles arose not long ago. Marc believes that this treatment of an asset that is highly susceptible to market conditions is extremely reckless, and announced that he will propose a reduction in the loan-to-value ratio of DAI at Aave.
We all know that in the world of cryptocurrency, 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 priced in stablecoins. Stablecoins have completed more than 12 trillion US dollars in settlement 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 is by far the most widely used in the decentralized currency market. assets.
As a stable currency, USDe hopes to provide scalability to improve capital utilization through the use of derivatives. By Ethenas design, USDe is able to scale while maintaining capital efficiency because the pledged ETH assets are perfectly hedged through equivalent short positions, resulting in only a 1:1"pledge"to create synthetic dollars.
Marc also used an analogy to explain the importance of risk management when using USDe: If you add 5 liters of gin to a cocktail, it may make you have a good night; but if you drink 3 Bottle of gin and you may end up with the toilet. This metaphor emphasizes the importance of proper risk management and setting reasonable upper limits in DeFi projects.
「ENA/USDe，smells like LUNA/UST」
Analyst Duo Nine (@DU 09 BTC) further directly pointed out that MakerDAO is printing money for free and may eventually make ordinary investors pay the price: They issued 100 million DAI, which can only be obtained by using USDe/sUSDe as collateral. Borrowing. It is a huge cost for users, but a huge profit for Maker. The annualized return rate of 100 million reaches 66%!
In Duo Nine’s view, it is only a matter of time before USDe breaks its anchor. The larger the bubble, the greater the probability of this happening. Ethena growing too fast could pose systemic risks to everyone. USDe, in particular, has not been tested in bear markets, and the risks are particularly prominent once billions of dollars are involved.
MakerDAO is taking advantage of the greed of users who are pursuing higher annualized returns on USDe. They dont care, they will use billions of dollars to fuel this greed. Maker makes huge profits, and the market value of USDe will continue to soar, Duo Nine said in His tweet pointed out a potential trap: USDes market capitalization is approximately US$10 billion, of which US$2 billion is Makers liability. If USDe breaks its anchor and panics and liquidations begin, Maker will be the first to sell USDe and recover funds to maintain their profits and principal, while those users who borrowed DAI with USDe and sUSDe on Morpho will be liquidated quickly .
Therefore, he called on all the big players in Ethena to show some restraint and build for the long term.
Following the lessons learned from Luna, the possibility of algorithmic stablecoin decoupling and the potential risks of rehypothecation have also worried some observers. And to some community members, it all looks a lot like Luna. Many people are worried that the next DeFi black swan event may occur on an original stablecoin protocol that mishandles risk management, but we also hope that this prediction is wrong. After all, no one wants to experience Luna again. .
