Ethena Raises $100M in ENA Private Token Sale Backed by Franklin Templeton and Fidelity's F-Prime Capital

The company plans to use the new capital to fund a token similar to ENA but focused on traditional financial institutions.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ethena has reportedly closed a massive $100 million private token sale, which was spearheaded by Franklin Templeton and supported by Dragonfly Capital, Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, and F-Prime Capital, the venture arm of Fidelity Investments.

The fundraising round, which was never officially announced, saw a foundation backing the Ethena project sell ENA tokens at 40 cents in December, according to Bloomberg, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

The new capital will be used to fund a token similar to ENA but aimed at traditional financial institutions, the report said.

Ethena has become one of the largest blockchain companies, with its “synthetic dollar” token USDe having a circulating supply of over $6 billion and the ENA token boasting a market capitalization of $1.268 billion, according to Coingecko data.

The news comes about a month after Ethena Labs founder Guy Young announced in a blog post that the project would be rolling out iUSDe, a token designed for regulated financial institutions, in the near future.

The token has certain transfer restrictions, according to Young, and Ethena has opted to work primarily with financial distribution partners to enable their clients to access iUSDe, allowing traditional finance to interact with the token without directly touching crypto rails.

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