Athena announces integration with exchange wallets

Author: Zhiyuan Sun, CoinTelegraph; Compiler: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

As of April 10, synthetic stablecoin protocol Athena Labs has integrated with centralized exchange wallets from Binance, Bybit, OKX, and Bitget.

"Starting today, users who lock USDe for at least 7 days through an exchange Web3 wallet are eligible for a 20% reward," said Athena developers. The incentives, issued in the form of "Ethena interest rates," can be converted into its native ENA token at the end of each event.To earn the interest rate, users must first deposit Athena USDe stablecoins into their exchange wallets, connect to the Athena decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, and stake their holdings. As of publication, the protocol has a total locked value of $2.274 billion and annualized revenue of $178 million.

Source: Ethena Labs

The protocol’s ecosystem rewards have attracted considerable attention and usage. According to blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain, the top 10 wallets have withdrawn and staked a total of 37.5 million ENA ($51 million) since the start of Athena Stake Season 2.

On March 8, less than a month after launching its USDe stablecoin, Athena became the highest-earning decentralized application in the cryptocurrency space, offering an annual percentage yield (APY) of 67% on its USDe. The protocol currently offers an annualized yield of 24% on its stablecoin. However, The earnings are not without risk, however, as it relies on trading revenue from complex Ethereum derivatives to pay the promised returns.

Against concerns about its high yields, Athena Labs founder Guy Young pointed out in an interview on Feb. 2 that comparing it to the failed Terra stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) was just a "knee-jerk reaction" and that the company's earnings are organic and sustainable. “The most important thing we’re trying to drive home is that Anchor’s yield is completely made up,” Young said. “It’s just venture capital firms putting money into (USTC yield protocol) Anchor and then paying out a yield that comes from nowhere.”

Meanwhile, the publicly verifiable Athena yield comes from a combination of ethereum consensus layer inflation rewards, execution fees paid to ethereum stakers, maximum extractable value fees earned by ethereum stakers, and trading revenue provided by Athena Labs. Specifically, short derivative positions are opened when the firm receives collateral assets for long positions used to mint USDe. The spread, or the difference in value between the two positions, is then paid out as yield to USDe holders.