The surge in prelaunch futures for Ethena’s impending governance token, ENA, suggests a potential debut market cap exceeding $500 million. Decentralized finance protocol Ethena has announced plans to distribute 750 million ENA tokens to USDe holders on April 2. Early Friday, Aevo’s prelaunch futures tied to ENA experienced a notable uptick of over 20%.
The ENA/USD pre-debut futures, available on the decentralized exchange Aevo, traded at 73 cents during Asian trading hours, reflecting a significant 22.29% surge over a 24-hour period. Ethena, known for its USDe token valued at $1.3 billion, will distribute 750 million ENA tokens, constituting 5% of the total supply, to USDe holders on April 2. Holders who retain, unstake, or sell their USDe before April 1 will be ineligible for the airdrop.
With the stated airdrop allocation and the current market price reflected in prelaunch futures, ENA could potentially debut with a market cap of $547.5 million. Moreover, the fully diluted market value (FDV) of ENA, based on total supply, could surpass $10 billion. The surge in ENA prelaunch futures is likely linked to Binance’s announcement of a launchpool for users to stake BNB and FDUSD farm ENA tokens. Binance launch pool, a popular centralized yield farming service, enables users to engage in early-stage projects.
Aevo noted a 20% increase in the prelaunch market for ENA following the Binance Launchpool announcement. ENA farming on Binance launch pool is scheduled to commence on March 30 at 00:00 UTC and will remain open for three days. Binance will list ENA on April 2, facilitating trading in ENA/BTC, ENA/USDt, ENA/BNB, ENA/FDUSD, and ENA/TRY pairs.
Aevo’s pre-listing perpetual futures function similarly to IOU futures offered by certain exchanges. These futures reference the token’s spot price upon launch and collect funding rates from traders to maintain synchronization with the spot price.
