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Points of Focus
- ENA traded near $0.165, up 29.5% in seven days as Ethena opened a buyback vote.
- The plan would use 95% of foundation net revenue for ENA purchases once USDe reaches $7.5 billion.
- USDe supply is near $4.06 billion, while Ethena is also changing its investor unlock schedule.
Ethena’s ENA token traded near $0.165 on Friday, up 29.5% over seven days, after the Ethena Foundation proposed a fee switch that could direct most of its net revenue to programmatic ENA buybacks.
The Aug. 27 proposal came alongside early-investor buyouts and changes to the monthly unlock schedule. ENA’s market capitalization stood near $1.62 billion, with about $2.23 billion traded over 24 hours.
Ethena buybacks need USDe to reach $7.5 billion
The proposal doesn’t start buybacks immediately. Once USDe reaches the first $7.5 billion supply milestone, 95% of net revenue paid to the Ethena Foundation from USDe savings, white-label stablecoins, and the planned Ethena X product would fund ENA purchases.
We are excited to announce four updates regarding the Ethena ecosystem, further details on each point are provided in the blog linked below:
1. Buyout of early investors:
The Ethena Foundation executed a buyout of all locked tokens from certain major seed investors that sold any…— Ethena Foundation (@EthenaFndtn) August 27, 2026
At the $7.5-billion rung, the fee switch would capture 5% of gross protocol revenue. The take would rise to 10% at $10 billion, 15% at $15 billion, and 20% at $20 billion. The 95% figure applies after that revenue reaches the foundation, rather than to Ethena’s total gross protocol revenue.
USDe has about $4.06 billion in circulating supply, meaning it would need to grow roughly 85% to reach the first trigger. Blockworks Advisory backtested the design across 705 days and estimated $52.7 million of annualized buybacks while the mechanism was active. Across the full test period, annualized capture fell to $8.82 million, equal to a 0.56% buyback yield on the $1.57-billion ENA market capitalization used in the study.
Ethena buys out selling seed investors
The Ethena Foundation also said it had bought the remaining locked tokens from certain major seed investors that had sold ENA since Oct. 10, 2025. The foundation didn’t disclose the investors, token amount or transaction value, so the announcement doesn’t quantify how much future supply the buyout removed.
Lead investors also agreed to replace the monthly unlock schedule with a release of all remaining original investor tokens beginning Oct. 5. Team tokens stay on their existing vesting schedules, while roughly 12% of ENA supply will remain locked across team, ecosystem and foundation holdings.
StablecoinX, which holds about 20% of total ENA supply, remains subject to a separate lockup schedule.
Vote on ENA fee switch clears quorum
The fee-switch vote opened Aug. 27 and is scheduled to close Sept. 2. As of Friday, it had received about 14 million votes in favor with 100% support, above the 5-million-vote quorum. Even if approved, buybacks remain inactive until USDe reaches the first $7.5 billion supply milestone.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
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