Ethena Labs Launches USDtb Stablecoin Backed by BlackRock’s BUIDL Platform

On Monday, decentralized finance firm Ethena Labs announced the launch of its USDtb stablecoin in collaboration with Securitize and supported by BlackRock

Key Points:

- On Monday, decentralized finance firm Ethena Labs announced the launch of its USDtb stablecoin in collaboration with Securitize and supported by BlackRock’s BUIDL platform. On the first day itself, the stablecoin managed to garner a total-value-locked (TVL) of $65 million.

- This new stablecoin from Ethena will operate similarly to Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), being backed by cash or cash equivalents on a 1:1 basis. By design, this stablecoin provides support for holders of Ethena’s flagship product, USDe, during periods of high market volatility.

- According to Ethena, “Ethena will be able to close the hedging positions underlying USDe and re-allocate its backing assets to USDtb to further ameliorate related risks.”

- José Maria Macedo, co-founder of blockchain research and development firm Delphi Labs, praised the USDtb stablecoin, stating that it will become the largest tokenized treasury product within a month of its launch.

- Similarly, Ethena’s head of growth, Seraphim Czecker, believes USDtb has the potential to scale to $100 billion. He also added that the firm is efficiently allocating capital in bearish markets while establishing an APY “floor” tied to the T-bill rate.

- BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund provides 90% backing to the USDtb stablecoin. Ethena’s committee member, Block Analiticia, said that stablecoins like USDC will provide the remaining 10% backing, as USDtb’s reserves, to ensure additional liquidity during weekends or times when U.S. Treasury bill markets are unavailable.

- Back in October, the core smart contracts of USDtb stablecoin passed three comprehensive audits by Pashov, Quantstamp, and Cyfrin. These firms reportedly found no high or medium-level issues with the asset.

- USDtb was approved by Ethena’s risk committee in late September, though final details were not confirmed until earlier this month.

- This launch follows Ethena’s USDe stablecoin surpassing Dai to become the third-largest stablecoin, trailing only USDT and USDC. However, with a market cap of $5.87 billion, USDe still lags behind USDT’s $140.6 billion and USDC’s $42.1 billion, according to DefiLlama data.

- Amid the strong growth of its ecosystem, Ethena price has seen over 100% gains on the monthly chart. As of press time, ENA is trading at $1.15 with a market cap of $3.41 billion and its TVL crossed $6 billion.