Standard Chartered Sees USDe at $40B, ENA at $2 by 2028

Standard Chartered expects Ethena’s USDe stablecoin supply to grow eightfold to $40 billion by the end of 2028 as the protocol expands its sources of yield beyond crypto markets.

The bank began coverage of Ethena’s ENA token in a Wednesday research report and set a year-end 2028 price target of $2. The target is about seven times the $0.28 price used in the report. USDe is expected to grow slightly faster than the overall stablecoin market.

Standard Chartered also forecasts Bitcoin will reach $300,000 and Ether $18,000 by the end of 2028. Based on the report’s reference prices, the forecast implies a larger percentage gain for ENA than for either cryptocurrency.

USDe generates returns through a crypto basis trade, which involves holding spot crypto while shorting perpetual futures contracts. Returns from that strategy have declined, prompting Ethena to add decentralized finance, institutional lending, real-world assets and basis trades linked to equities and commodities.

Those additional sources currently generate a combined yield of 5.2%, according to the bank. Standard Chartered forecasts the tokenized-asset market will grow from about $350 billion to $4 trillion by the end of 2028, increasing the pool of assets Ethena could use to generate returns for USDe.

The bank’s ENA valuation also depends on a buyback mechanism approved by Ethena governance in early September. Once USDe reaches specified supply thresholds, 95% of net revenue from the protocol’s business lines will be used to buy ENA.

Ethena estimates that $25 billion in USDe supply could generate $375 million in annual ENA buybacks, based on a 6% gross protocol yield and a 25% net revenue share. Standard Chartered estimates that if USDe reaches $40 billion and ENA’s price remains unchanged, annual buybacks could equal about 23% of the token’s circulating market capitalization.

The bank described that rate as unlikely to continue and expects ENA’s price to rise until buybacks account for a smaller share of the token’s market value. It compared the projected rate with Uniswap, where annualized buybacks have stabilized at about 3% to 4% as the price of UNI increased.

ENA traded at about $0.27 on Wednesday, up roughly 28% over the previous week and 77% over the previous month. The token had a market capitalization of about $2.65 billion, according to CoinGecko data.