Ethena Enters Crypto Neobanking With New App, Takes USDe Beyond DeFi

Ethena has entered the crypto neobanking race. It is taking its synthetic dollar USDe one step closer to everyday money.

The company has launched the beta of Ethena Pay, a self-custodial financial app that combines savings, payments and global transfers. This puts a banking-style interface around Ethena’s existing digital-dollar ecosystem.

Built on Avalanche, Ethena Pay allows users to hold USDe as a dollar balance, receive money through bank or crypto rails, send funds globally and spend through a payment card. The app is initially rolling out across 48 countries, with the U.S. and European Union not included in the first phase.

Ethena founder Guy Young Calls Neobanking Big Opportunity

The move is a significant change in direction for Ethena. USDe has primarily been used across crypto markets, exchanges and DeFi. With Pay, the company is trying to make the stablecoin part of the much more ordinary financial activities of saving, spending and sending money.

That is also where Ethena founder Guy Young sees the biggest opportunity.

In announcing the product in a X post, Young said Ethena had been working on the neobank experience in stealth.  He believes the category has a genuine chance of expanding beyond crypto’s existing user base to hundreds of millions of people.

The target, he said, is not necessarily people already using wallets and DeFi protocols. Ethena instead sees an opportunity among the hundreds of millions of consumers who are “not already operating onchain” and have not yet been served by crypto-native financial products.

Young argues that rebuilding the banking experience on stablecoin and blockchain rails can offer users near-instant and potentially zero-cost transfers and settlements. This is along with higher savings rates through DeFi financial primitives and financial products that can be global almost immediately.

How Ethena’s Crypto Neobank Works

Founder Geo’s thinking is reflected in the way Ethena Pay has been designed.

Rather than asking users to interact directly with DeFi protocols, the app packages the underlying infrastructure into familiar financial products.

Users can hold USDe, earn a return on their balance, transfer money and use a card for everyday purchases.

The savings product is one of the biggest hooks.

As per EthenaPay’s official website, standard users can earn 5% APY on balances of up to $5,000, while Pro and VIP users can earn 6% APY on balances of up to $15,000 and $50,000, respectively.

The company is also offering a payment card with cashback. Standard users receive 4%, Pro users 4.5% and VIP users 5% cashback, paid in AVAX. At selected merchants, Pro and VIP users can receive up to 5% and 10% cashback, respectively.

The card can be used across Visa’s merchant network, while Ethena Pay also supports Apple Pay.

That gives USDe a very different role. Instead of being something a user buys, holds or deposits into a DeFi protocol, USDe can now become the balance sitting behind everyday financial activity.

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Ethena says users can also send money instantly to other Ethena Pay users without a transfer fee. USD, EUR and GBP bank transfers are free, while other bank transfers carry fees ranging from 0.05% to 0.1%.

For Young, that is the point of building the product as a neobank rather than simply launching another crypto wallet.

In his post, he described the basic financial needs of most consumers as remarkably simple: “90% of financial services for most normal people is just send, save and spend.”

The move also comes as Ethena works to address the monthly ENA unlock overhang, after the foundation bought out locked tokens from certain early investors. Ethena addresses monthly ENA unlock overhang