Ethena Stablecoin’s Dollar Peg Slips Briefly Amid Crypto Upheaval

The third-largest stablecoin reportedly lost its dollar peg briefly amid a wider market downturn.

USDe, a “synthetic dollar” from cryptocurrency project Ethena, fell to 65 cents against the U.S. dollar on Binance’s exchange, Bloomberg News reported Saturday (Oct. 11). The coin is designed to maintain a price near to that of the dollar, and regained that status following an initial sell-off, the report added.

“Our team is currently conducting a thorough review of the impacted users, the details surrounding these liquidations, and the appropriate compensation measures,” Binance wrote in a blog post about USDe and two other tokens that lost their pegs.

This came as the price of crypto tumbled following President Donald Trump’s announcements of a new 100% tariff on China, wiping out more than $19 billion in crypto investments and leading to more than 1.6 million traders liquidated.

China has called the new tariffs hypocritical and defended its limits on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, but fell short of placing new tariffs of its own on American products.

Trump on Sunday (Oct. 12) seemed to downplay the dispute on his Truth Social platform.

With a market value of $14 billion, USDe is the third-largest stablecoin after Tether and Circle. However, the Bloomberg report noted that its price fluctuations, while short-lived, were enough to trigger concerns among investors. Ethena Labs wrote in a post on X that the coin remains over-collateralized.

“Even a brief stablecoin depeg can shake the market,” said Rachael Lucas, analyst at BTC Markets. “Traders rely on them for liquidity, lending and collateral, so any loss of confidence can trigger liquidations and spill into wider crypto volatility.”

In other stablecoin news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the way the emerging goal of these tokens seems to be “to make ‘crypto’ disappear as a standalone concept.”

“Just as few people today think about TCP/IP when they send an email, few will think about stablecoins when they make an instant international payment,” that report said. “The technology will recede into the background, embedded in the pipes of everyday finance.”

An example of that embedding, the report added, can be seen in the news that Coinbase and Mastercard are in advanced negotiations to acquire BVNK, a FinTech offering enterprise-grade stablecoin payments infrastructure.

“Acquiring BVNK gives the buyer not just software but connectivity to banks, payment networks, and enterprise clients already using BVNK’s rails,” PYMNTS wrote. “BVNK claims to process over $20 billion annually and supports clients including Worldpay, Flywire, and dLocal.”