BlackRock will list Ethena's USDe as an approved digital asset on Aladdin, its institutional portfolio and risk-management platform, the two firms said Monday, opening the synthetic dollar to the asset managers, banks, insurers and pension funds that run money on the system.
Ethena, whose USDe synthetic dollar has a circulating supply of about $4.45 billion, said the integration gives institutional users a familiar interface to hold and monitor the token. As part of the same agreement, BlackRock's tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, will serve as the primary backing asset for Ethena's whitelabel stablecoin product, and Ethena will provide a liquidity facility for BlackRock's tokenized products. Ethena said Aladdin is used by financial institutions to manage more than $20 trillion in assets.
ENA climbed about 5% after the announcement, while Bitcoin was little changed, according to CoinGecko data. The token trades around $0.08, with a market capitalization near $740 million, down sharply from levels reached during last year's rally. USDe held its peg, trading at about $0.998.
The deal marks the deepest link yet between the world's largest asset manager and a DeFi protocol built on derivatives trading, and it extends a pattern of traditional finance firms moving capital and infrastructure onchain rather than building competing rails. For Ethena, it adds an institutional distribution channel on top of a flurry of recent tie-ups with regulated players.
