The Ethena Foundation has put forward a proposal to direct nearly all net revenue from its ecosystem towards the buyback of the governance token ENA.
We are excited to announce four updates regarding the Ethena ecosystem, further details on each point are provided in the blog linked below:
1. Buyout of early investors:
— Ethena Foundation (@EthenaFndtn) August 27, 2026
The Ethena Foundation executed a buyout of all locked tokens from certain major seed investors that sold any…
At the same time, the project is restructuring the ownership of its protocol value while reducing the future emission pressure from investors.
All Revenue to ENA
If the community approves this proposal, all net revenue generated from Ethena-related products and businesses will be utilized for purchasing ENA tokens from the market. The proposal has already received the Risk Committee's approval and is currently live for voting on the Snapshot platform.
This essentially represents a “fee switch”: instead of distributing revenue across various ecosystem initiatives, it will be redirected towards the token buyback. In the previous model, for instance, revenue from the USDe stablecoin was allocated to rewards for sUSDe holders and partnership programs.
However, Ethena has not yet disclosed the voting timeline and does not guarantee that the new model will be accepted.
Foundation Takes Over Protocol Value
Simultaneously, Ethena Labs and Ethena Foundation have signed a Master Framework Agreement, which stipulates that the intellectual property of the protocol and the value it generates will exclusively belong to the organization.
Going forward, these assets will be managed by ENA holders through community governance mechanisms. Investors in Ethena Labs will no longer retain residual rights over the protocol's cash flows as per the agreement.
Investors to Lose Future Unlocks
Another aspect of the update pertains to ENA's tokenomics. The Foundation and key venture investors have agreed to eliminate future monthly unlocks of tokens designated for them.
This group was allocated 25% of the fixed ENA supply — 3.75 billion tokens. The unlocking process initially included a one-year cliff period followed by a three-year monthly vesting schedule. Now, the unallocated tokens from investors who agreed to the new scheme will be released from the schedule. Team assets will continue to be released according to the original timetable.
Additionally, the Foundation announced that it has bought back the remaining locked ENA from several significant early investors who sold tokens over the past nine months. The details of this transaction have not been disclosed.
Thus, Ethena is simultaneously addressing two issues regarding ENA: creating stable demand through buybacks and alleviating potential pressure from future unlocks.
In light of these anticipated changes in tokenomics, the price of ENA surged nearly 12% within a day, trading at around $0.16 — a notable drop from its peak of $1.5 in April 2024.
Source: CoinGecko.The market capitalization of ENA stands at $1.54 billion, with a total value locked in Ethena of $4.5 billion, of which approximately $4 billion is attributed to USDe.
It is worth noting that in August 2025, the project's stablecoin ranked among the top three assets in the stablecoin segment. However, just three months later, its supply decreased by over 50% due to falling yields.