Ethena Partners With Onchain Derivatives Protocol Derive, Secures 5% OF DRV Token Supply for sENA Holders

DeFi protocol Ethena announced Tuesday a new partnership with Derive.xyz, the world’s leading on-chain options and structured products platform, featuring a multi-million dollar investment to enhance liquidity and drive growth for both protocols.

Under the partnership, Ethena will integrate Derive’s basis trading, options, futures and vaults, leveraging Ethena’s USDe stablecoin and staked USDE to boost liquidity and trading volume, the press release shared with CoinDesk said.

Ethena will begin its basis trading on Derive’s perpetual markets, pending approval from the Ethena Risk Council. That’s expected to boost volumes and liquidity on Derive, bolstering Derive users’ ability to execute large orders at stable prices.

In conjunction with this, the Lyra Foundation, which oversees the Derive protocol, will receive a multi-million dollar grant from the Ethena Foundation, and staked ENA (sENA) holders will be rewarded with 5% of the DRV tokens granted to the Ethena Foundation. The ENA token is a governance token for the Ethena ecosystem.

“Integrating Ethena’s immense liquidity and strong user base with Derive.xyz’s unparalleled derivatives protocol not only unlocks significant opportunities for Derive.xyz users, but also positions it as the premier on-chain derivatives platform,” Nick Forster, Founder of Derive.xyz, said.

“Together, we are setting new standards in DeFi, offering innovative solutions that cater to both retail and institutional traders. Get ready for the next generation of groundbreaking on-chain derivatives, liquidity, and financial products,” Forster added.

Derive said it’s integrating USDe as collateral, allowing users to trade while simultaneously earning a passive yield. Ethena’s USDe is a synthetic dollar, which uses a hedged cash-and-carry strategy, also known as the basis trade, and collateralized stablecoin to maintain the $1 price peg.

The on-chain derivatives protocol is also debuting vaults for staked USDe (sUSDe) holders, enabling them to load up on reward by combining Ethena’s staking yields with Derive’ structured product strategies.

Ethena has over $4 billion in TVL as of writing, with over 300,000 users and integrations with the largest centralized exchanges like Deribit and ByBit.

Meanwhile, with a TVL of $79 million, Derive is the world’s largest decentralised protocol, facilitating programmable on-chain options, perpetuals, and structured products. It’s native token DRV will go live on Jan. 15, the protocol spokesperson told CoinDesk.