Ethena's USDe has climbed past $11.7 billion in supply, a number that puts it shoulder to shoulder with the biggest dollar-pegged coins out there, and while that alone would be enough, what really stands out this week is the green light from Ethena's risk committee that XRP now fits the profile to be brought in as collateral.
In other words, the token that for years was imagined as the rails for banks might end up finding its first large-scale use in the dollar system holding up one of the biggest stablecoins there.
The checklist that makes this possible is not simple, but it is also not the kind of thing many assets can pass.
To be used as USDe collateral, the asset needs more than $1 billion in open interest, daily volumes above $100 million and order books deep enough to take size without bending the market. BNB was approved today, and now XRP has been teased as the next asset that clears all the bars.
No surprise it's XRP
XRP price is at $2.80, carries a market value of $166 billion and turns over more than $5 billion a day across exchanges. Those figures mean it has the liquidity and activity needed to sit inside USDe’s system, which is already minting hundreds of millions a week and paying out close to 9% on staked positions.
Ethena has already logged $500 million in total interest revenue — $13.4 million of that just last week — so this stablecoin machine is clearly running hot.
All the time XRP holders thought the big reveal would come from banks finally using it to settle payments at scale. But the real picture is drawn differently. Maybe XRP’s biggest role is not in old finance at all, but in helping to underpin the stablecoin infrastructure that is being built at the front of the market right now.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov
U.Today Editorial Team