Ethena continues to deepen its ties with traditional finance, announcing a deal with asset manager Janus Henderson that includes a strategic investment in the protocol’s governance token.
Under the agreement, Ethena will allocate and help distribute Janus Henderson’s tokenized collateralized loan obligation (CLO) funds, the protocol said in a Tuesday X post.
Meanwhile, Janus Henderson, with $480 billion in assets under management, made a strategic investment in Ethena’s $ENA token and plans to use $USDeEthena’s yield-bearing synthetic dollar, as part of its treasury cash management strategy, according to an announcement Thursday.
The companies are also exploring ways to offer this $USDe to Janus Henderson clients through exchange-traded investment products.
$ENA rose 5% after the announcement before paring gains. It fell 8% in the past 24 hours as the broader crypto markets slipped
“We are very excited about this opportunity,” Nick Cherney, head of innovation at Janus Henderson Investors, told Coindesk in a note. “We deeply believe that blockchain innovation is led by the defi community, and that we must continue to forge partnerships with leading founders and protocols.”
The deal fits in with the trend of traditional financial companies increasingly embracing and supporting decentralized financial infrastructure (DeFi). Earlier this year, BlackRock (BLK) expanded its tokenized money market fund through a partnership with Uniswap and also invested an undisclosed amount in the decentralized exchange’s UNI token, while Apollo Global Management (APO) struck a deal with lending protocol Morpho to bring tokenized private credit assets onchain and invest in the protocol’s governance token.
Last week, Coinbase Ventures announced its first investment in Ethena and announced a partnership that will bring Ethena products to Coinbase’s more than 100 million users. In addition, Ethena expanded its relationship with crypto bank Anchorage Digital to support institutional lending activities through Anchorage’s Atlas collateral management platform.
Ethena has grown into one of the largest decentralized finance protocols by providing returns through its returns $USDe token, which combines demand for stablecoins with derivatives-based hedging strategies. After reaching around $15 billion in assets during last year’s market rally, the protocol currently manages around $5 billion as crypto markets continue to recover from a prolonged downturn.
“Ethena has proven that it is possible to innovate in the stablecoin arena even now, and we continue to see tremendous opportunity in their business,” Janus Henderson’s Cherney added.