It took Ethena’s new vault on Coinbase exactly four days to cross the $100 million deposit mark. For a product that essentially asks centralized exchange users to dip their toes into DeFi-style yields, that’s a pretty emphatic answer to the question of whether there’s demand.
The Steakhouse High Yield USDC Vault launched around June 11-12 and hit the nine-figure milestone by June 15. The vault is curated by Steakhouse Financial and built on the Morpho protocol, facilitating lending with Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe. Think of it as a bridge: Coinbase’s familiar interface on one side, DeFi yield mechanics on the other, with users walking across without needing to understand every plank beneath their feet.
How the vault actually works
The vault accepts a diversified range of collateral, including Ethena-linked assets like USDe and its staked counterpart, sUSDe, and targets yields higher than Coinbase’s existing Prime USDC vault.
The Prime vault, by contrast, plays it conservative. It focuses on blue-chip collateral, the digital asset equivalent of government bonds. The Steakhouse vault is willing to take on more exotic collateral in exchange for juicier returns. Same exchange, very different risk appetites.
