Standard Chartered has initiated research coverage of Ethena, the protocol behind the USDe synthetic dollar, with a forecast that its governance token ENA will reach $2.00 by the end of 2028. The report, published on September 30, 2026, by the bank’s digital assets research team led by Geoff Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Assets Research, also sets year-end targets of $0.42 for 2026 and $1.10 for 2027.
The $2.00 target implies roughly a 7x gain from the $0.28 reference price used in the report and about an 8x gain from where ENA traded on Wednesday. CoinMarketCap data showed ENA near $0.2594, at 10:25 AM UTC with a market capitalization of about $2.6 billion and a circulating supply of about 10.09 billion tokens against a maximum supply of 15 billion. The token was down about 3% over 24 hours and up about 64% over 30 days.
ENA remains about 84% below its all-time high of $1.52, set on April 11, 2024. It is also well above the June 10, 2026, low of about $0.070, when the token hit a record low under token unlock pressure.
What the Standard Chartered Report Says
Ethena is a synthetic dollar protocol built on Ethereum. Its USDe token targets a value of $1, but unlike cash-backed stablecoins, it is backed by crypto and other assets hedged with derivatives. Holders who stake USDe receive sUSDe (staked USDe), which passes protocol yield through to them.
The report, titled “Ethena – A scalable yield-bearing stablecoin,” which Ethena shared on X, ranks Ethena as the fourth-largest stablecoin issuer after Tether, Circle, and Sky, the protocol formerly known as MakerDAO. It places Ethena second among issuers of yield-bearing stablecoins, behind Sky, and notes that USDe was the fastest stablecoin to reach a $10 billion market capitalization after its late-2023 launch.
The bank describes Ethena as sitting at the intersection of three markets it expects to grow: perpetual futures, tokenization, and stablecoins. Yield-bearing stablecoins make up about 5% of the total stablecoin market today, according to the report.
| Standard Chartered ENA forecast (year-end, USD) | 2026E | 2027E | 2028E |
|---|---|---|---|
| ENA | 0.42 | 1.10 | 2.00 |
The bank says this path would outpace its own Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) forecasts through 2028.
The $40 Billion USDe Assumption
The forecast rests on USDe supply rising to about $40 billion by the end of 2028, roughly 8x its current level of about $4.9 billion on Ethena’s transparency dashboard. USDe supply peaked near $14.8 billion in October 2025.
In the same timeframe, Standard Chartered expects the total stablecoin market to reach $2 trillion and on-chain real-world assets (RWAs) to grow from about $40 billion to $2 trillion. Ethena’s own public commentary has been more ambitious, citing potential for $100 billion of USDe over five years.
How the Buyback Math Works
A buyback is when a protocol uses its revenue to purchase its own token on the open market. In August, the Ethena Foundation proposed directing up to 95% of net revenue toward ENA buybacks as USDe supply crosses set thresholds.
Standard Chartered models those buybacks using a 6% gross protocol annual percentage yield (APY) and a profit take-rate that rises from 5% to 25% as supply grows:
| USDe supply | Annualized ENA buybacks |
|---|---|
| $7.5 billion | $22.5 million |
| $10 billion | $60 million |
| $15 billion | $135 million |
| $20 billion | $240 million |
| $25 billion | $375 million |
The first tier begins at $7.5 billion, above today’s supply of about $4.9 billion. At $40 billion of USDe and an unchanged ENA price, the bank estimates annual buybacks could equal about 23% of circulating supply. It calls that level unsustainable as an equilibrium and concludes the token price would need to rise, citing Uniswap’s buyback path after its fee switch as a comparison.
Yield Sources Have Shifted
The Standard Chartered report puts the current blended APY on USDe backing at about 5.2%, compared with an average of about 7% since inception. USDe originally relied on the crypto basis trade, which holds spot crypto while shorting perpetual futures to collect funding payments. That trade once yielded more than 20% annualized, but funding rates have since compressed.
The backing now spans decentralized finance (DeFi) lending, overcollateralized institutional lending, liquid stablecoins, RWAs beyond U.S. Treasury bills, and early equity basis trades.
On September 25, Ethena began an equity basis trade on Binance, using tokenized stocks as the spot leg and equity perpetuals as the hedge. In June, Ethena integrated USDe into BlackRock’s Aladdin platform, with BlackRock’s BUIDL (USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund) named as the primary reserve asset for its white-label product.
In its post sharing the note, Ethena said it was “unclear why they are so bearish,” pointing to the gap between the bank’s $40 billion base case and its own $100 billion outlook.
Risks Flagged in the Note
Standard Chartered lists three main risks. Growth in yield-bearing stablecoins could be slower than expected. On-chain RWAs may not scale enough to supply non-crypto yield at $40 billion of USDe. Raising the protocol’s take-rate could also slow USDe growth if users find similar yield elsewhere.
The bank does not treat Ethena’s white-label stablecoin service or Ethena Pay, its USDe payments app, as core to the $2 case, since both are at an early stage. Near term, all remaining original investor ENA tokens are scheduled to unlock on October 5, 2026.
If USDe supply stalls near current levels, the buyback framework in the note does not produce a 7x move in ENA. The report is an initiation of coverage, meaning it is the bank’s first published view on the token and has no track record yet.
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