Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Ethena is set to bring its $1.5 billion stablecoin to the U.S. market, teaming up with crypto bank Anchorage Digital to issue the token under the new stablecoin laws.
As part of the partnership the firms announced on Wednesday, federally regulated crypto bank Anchorage will issue the USDtb token directly in the U.S. under the GENIUS Act’s compliance standards.
That’s a move away from the token’s current offshore issuance model, a move that aims to create a pathway for institutions to hold and use the token within regulated financial channels.
“While we’ve already seen strong demand for USDtb, we expect GENIUS compliance to empower our partners and holders to confidently and significantly expand its use across new products and platforms,” Ethena co-founder and CEO of development organization Ethena Labs Guy Young said in a statement.
Ethena’s governance token ENA (ENA) is up 9% over the past 24 hours, outperforming the broader crypto market that saw many altcoins plunge 5%-10% overnight. The market benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index was down 1.3% during the same period.
The move comes after President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law last week, a landmark crypto legislation that sets guidelines for stablecoins and issuers to operate in the country. Stablecoins are a $250 billion and rapidly growing class of cryptocurrencies with their prices anchored to an external asset, predominantly to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. Tether, issuer of the largest stablecoin USDT, also announced plans to enter the U.S. market under the new law.
USDtb, introduced in December, aims to keep a stable $1 price and is backed predominantly by tokenized money market fund BUIDL, issued by BlackRock and Securitize. The token currently has a $1.45 billion supply on the Ethereum blockchain, per RWA.xyz data. Ethena also issues the USDe “digital dollar,” a token that generates yield by shorting bitcoin, ether and SOL harvesting funding rates.
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