Ethena Foundation announced a sweeping four-part restructuring of its ecosystem on August 27, targeting the two issues that have weighed on its native ENA token for months: persistent selling pressure from early-investor unlocks and uncertainty over how protocol value flows to token holders.
The announcement sent ENA surging more than 23% in 24 hours to roughly $0.17, extending a weekly gain that saw the token more than double from around $0.085. The broader crypto market also rallied during the period, but traders and analysts credited the Ethena overhaul as the primary catalyst for ENA’s outperformance.
Seed Investor Buyouts Clear Selling Overhang
The first component of the restructuring targeted major seed investors who had already sold portions of their ENA allocations. The Foundation said it executed over-the-counter buyouts of all locked tokens from investors who had sold any of their positions during the nine months since ENA’s October 2025 peak. The transactions were conducted during the two weeks preceding the announcement and covered investors whose original allocations exceeded 0.25% of ENA’s total supply.
Investors who had not sold during that period were offered the option to sell their locked holdings at original purchase price without a discount, but none accepted. One wallet declined the buyout offer entirely. The Foundation did not disclose the identities of participating investors, the number of tokens purchased, or the transaction value.
Ethena’s early backers have included Dragonfly Capital, OKX Ventures, Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom, Nic Carter’s Castle Island Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and Galaxy Digital. The company has raised $166 million across funding rounds.
Monthly VC Unlocks End October 5
The second major change replaces the ongoing monthly investor-unlock schedule with a one-time accelerated release of all remaining original investor tokens beginning October 5, 2026. After this final distribution, roughly 12% of ENA’s total supply will remain locked and unvested, consisting solely of team, ecosystem, and foundation allocations.
Team tokens remain subject to their existing vesting schedules. StablecoinX, one of the two largest ENA holders with approximately 20% of total supply, will remain outside the revised investor-unlock treatment under its publicly filed token purchase agreement.
Protocol IP Moves to Foundation
The third element involves a Master Framework Agreement between Ethena Labs and the Foundation that would transfer substantially all material protocol intellectual property to the Foundation and its ecosystem rather than Ethena Labs equity holders. Economic benefits from the protocol, including proceeds from any future sale of the underlying business, would also accrue to the Foundation rather than Labs shareholders.
The Foundation described this as formalizing arrangements that have existed since its creation. The full agreement is expected to be published in October 2026.
Revenue-Driven Buyback Mechanism Proposed
The fourth and potentially most significant change is a governance proposal, now open for voting on Snapshot, that would create a recurring buyback mechanism tied to USDe supply milestones. Once USDe circulation reaches the first threshold of $7.5 billion, 95% of net revenue paid to the Foundation from its three core business lines would be used for programmatic ENA purchases on the open market. The remaining 5% would fund growth initiatives.
The three revenue-generating business lines are USDe savings products, Ethena’s white-label stablecoin offerings, and a new product called Ethena X, which was scheduled to launch the week after the announcement. The governance proposal is not yet an active buyback program but rather a conditional framework that activates only when the supply milestone is reached.
“The changes aim to cut investor selling pressure and channel protocol revenue to ENA as Ethena looks to revive USDe growth,” CoinDesk reported.
Reviving USDe After Steep Decline
The overhaul comes after a dramatic reversal for USDe, whose supply has fallen below $5 billion from a peak near $15 billion in October during the crypto bull market. The synthetic dollar protocol on Ethereum has a total value locked of approximately $5.4 billion and has generated cumulative fees of about $983 million since launch.
Recent institutional partnerships have bolstered confidence in Ethena’s trajectory. Janus Henderson invested in ENA in June and is exploring USDe distribution, while Coinbase launched a savings product with Ethena and its venture arm purchased ENA on the open market. In August, Ethena partnered with prime broker FalconX on a $1 billion secured lending facility for USDe reserves.
ENA’s market capitalization sits above $1.6 billion, with a fully diluted valuation of approximately $2.4 billion. The token’s all-time high of $1.52 was reached in April 2024. With the current restructuring targeting both supply-side pressure and revenue-to-value transmission, analysts will be watching whether the tokenomics overhaul can sustain momentum as USDe approaches the critical $7.5 billion threshold.
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