Which project team have you ever seen proactively pay money to buy back all the early investors’ coins that were sold?

Ethena just did this. $ENA


In the last 24 hours, it’s up +24.09%, with the price hitting $0.1787 and trading volume at $756 million. This isn’t a normal pump—it’s the foundation rewriting tokenomics with real cash.

On August 27, the Ethena Foundation announced four major updates:

1️⃣ VC buyout and exit: The foundation spent two weeks to fully purchase the locked coins of early VCs that had sold ENA after the peak. The source of sell pressure is removed at the root

2️⃣ End of monthly unlocking: The remaining investors’ tokens are released all at once on October 5, and the monthly unlocking calendar is voided. Only 12% team/foundation tokens remain locked

3️⃣ Fee Switch voting: Deadline is September 2. If passed, when USDe reaches $7.5 billion, 95% of the protocol’s net revenue will be used for ENA repurchases. Monthly income is about $57 million, annualized nearly $700 million

4️⃣ Asset transfer: On October 10, the Master Framework Agreement transfers all protocol IP and remaining value to ENA holders, leaving equity investors in Labs with no income

This is the cleanest tokenomics overhaul project of the 2026 era—no other comes close.

What Ethena is doing boils down to three steps: drive out the people selling coins → tie the protocol revenue and token price together → hand governance power to token holders. This isn’t wishful thinking; it’s an already-executing roadmap.

And last week, Ethena also signed a $1 billion institutional borrowing facility with FalconX. The underlying assets of USDe can be deployed into institutional credit with overcollateralization, generating returns across bull and bear cycles. The Fee Switch is ongoing cash flow, not a one-time story.

Arthur Hayes has been continuously buying large amounts of ENA and openly said it’s a “5x bet.” Whales lock up, VCs exit—who’s on which side is clear at a glance.

USDe is currently at $4.6 billion. It still needs $2.9 billion to trigger the $7.5 billion buyback. Every additional $100 million gets you one step closer.