Decentralized finance protocol Ethena has announced an airdrop of 750 million ENA tokens to USDe holders scheduled for April 2.
Aevo’s prelaunch futures linked to ENA surged by over 20% early on Friday.
Prelaunch futures tied to Ethena’s forthcoming governance token ENA saw a significant surge on Friday, indicating a potential market capitalization of over $500 million upon its debut.
During Asian trading hours, the ENA/USD pre-debut futures on the decentralized exchange Aevo were traded at 73 cents, marking a 22.29% increase over a 24-hour period.
Ethena, which hosts the $1.3 billion USDe token, plans to distribute 750 million ENA tokens, equivalent to 5% of the total supply, to USDe holders on April 2. Traders who unlock, unstake, or sell their USDe tokens before April 1 will not qualify for the airdrop.
Based on the stated airdrop quantity and the market price indicated by prelaunch futures, the token’s debut could see a market capitalization of $547.5 million. Additionally, the fully diluted market value (FDV) of ENA could exceed $10 billion, calculated using the total supply.
The substantial surge in ENA prelaunch futures is likely due to Binance’s announcement of a launchpool, allowing users to stake BNB and FDUSD to farm ENA tokens. Binance launchpool, a centralized yield farming service, is a popular platform for early-stage project participation.
Aevo noted, “The @ethena_labs prelaunch market on Aevo is up 20% on the back of their Binance Launchpool announcement.”
ENA farming on Binance launchpool is set to commence on March 30 at 00:00 UTC and will run for three days. The prominent cryptocurrency exchange plans to list ENA on April 2, enabling trading in various pairs including ENA/BTC, ENA/USDt, ENA/BNB, ENA/FDUSD, and ENA/TRY.
Aevo’s pre-listing perpetual futures resemble “I owe you” or IOU futures provided by some exchanges. These futures reference the token’s spot price once it goes live and collect funding rates from traders to maintain synchronization with the spot price.