Ethena-USDe rise momentum is strong, Decentralized Finance ecosystem benefits significantly

The total issuance of USDe has shown a significant rise over the past month, climbing from 2.4 billion USD to 3.8 billion USD, with a monthly increase of over 58%. This growth trend is closely related to Bitcoin's price breaking new highs. As market bullish sentiment increases, the funding rate rise has driven up the staking yield of USDe, further stimulating its growth. Although there has been a slight pullback compared to earlier periods, the APY reported by a data platform on November 26 still remains at a high level of around 25%.

At the same time, MakerDAO has also become a beneficiary of this round of rise. Currently, Maker's daily revenue has increased by over 200% compared to a month ago, setting a new historical high. This growth is closely related to the development of Ethena. The high-staking APY of USDe has brought enormous borrowing demand for sUSDe and PT assets. On a certain lending platform, the total scale of borrowing DAI using sUSDe and PT as collateral has reached approximately 570 million USD, with a borrowing utilization rate exceeding 80% and a deposit APY as high as 12%. In the past month, the total incremental loans issued by the Maker D3M module through this platform have exceeded 300 million USD.

In addition to direct paths, the borrowing demand for sUSDe and PT has also indirectly pushed up the DAI usage rate in other channels. The DAI deposit interest rate on a certain lending platform has reached 8.5%. MakerDAO's balance sheet shows that the total DAI loans issued through the D3M module to two major lending platforms amounts to approximately 2 billion USD, close to 40% of Maker's asset side. These two alone have generated an annualized fee of 203 million USD for Maker, contributing about 550,000 USD in daily revenue for MakerDAO, accounting for 54% of MakerDAO's total annualized fees.

In this rise spiral, almost every participant benefits. Leverage miners and lenders of USDe can achieve extremely high but volatile yields through leverage, while DAI deposit users receive relatively high and stable yields. Low-risk arbitrageurs earn spreads by staking Bitcoin, minting Ethereum LST, or borrowing DAI, while advanced players obtain excess returns through combinations of DeFi protocols. Meanwhile, each protocol also reaps higher TVL, income, and token prices.

However, whether this rise can be sustained depends on whether the interest rate spread between USDe and DAI will exist in the long term. Considering that DAI offers a relatively predictable monetary policy, the focus is mainly on USDe. Influencing factors include: whether the bullish sentiment of the bull market can be sustained, whether Ethena can achieve a higher APY distribution efficiency through improvements in economic models and market share enhancement, and competition from interest-bearing stablecoin strategies launched by other trading platforms.

It is worth noting that although the operation of the D3M module will not directly cause DAI to become an under-collateralized stablecoin, it does bring some potential risks. These risks include the possibility of DAI becoming a "shadow stablecoin" again, the operational risks of Ethena, contract risks, and custody risks potentially being transmitted to DAI, as well as the overall LTV of DAI potentially decreasing.

Overall, the rapid rise of USDe has brought new vitality to the Decentralized Finance ecosystem, while also provoking in-depth consideration of stablecoin risk management in the market. While enjoying high yields, participants also need to be wary of potential systemic risks.