Ethena ends monthly VC unlocks as ENA buyback vote opens
The Foundation says it bought locked tokens from certain selling seed investors and will accelerate remaining investor unlocks, while a fee-switch proposal would fund ENA purchases only after a USDe supply milestone.
By The Third AnglePublished Updated 3 min read
Illustrative financial imagery; it does not depict Ethena's governance vote or treasury dashboard. Photo: Unsplash · Unsplash License
Ethena's Risk Committee has proposed a new schedule for directing protocol revenue to ENA token buybacks, with the plan now subject to an ENA tokenholder vote. The governance post says the vote will follow the proposal and that buybacks would begin only if holders approve the plan and the stated supply milestones are reached.
The proposal is part of a four-part overhaul announced by the Foundation. Ethena says it bought the remaining locked tokens from certain major seed investors who had sold ENA over the prior nine months, and that it will end monthly investor unlocks by accelerating the remaining original investor allocations. Team tokens remain subject to their existing vesting schedules. CoinDesk reported the change and the accompanying agreement in principle to place the protocol's material intellectual property and economic upside with the Foundation and ecosystem rather than Ethena Labs equity holders. The Foundation says more detail on that framework is expected in October.
The proposal is a governance decision, not an active buyback program. Ethena's post says 95% of net revenue paid to the Ethena Foundation from its three business lines would be directed to ENA buybacks after the first milestone, while the committee's supporting analysis says the take would be applied proportionally across the revenue currently distributed by the protocol.
The buyback schedule
The proposed take rises with USDe circulating supply: 5% at $7.5 billion, 10% at $10 billion, 15% at $15 billion and 20% at $20 billion. Ethena's supporting analysis says USDe supply was about $4.07 billion when it was written, so the first threshold had not been reached and the plan did not create an immediate buyback.
At a 6% protocol-APY assumption, the analysis models annualized captured revenue of $22.5 million at the first tier and $240 million at the highest tier. Those are scenario figures, not a forecast: actual buyback dollars would depend on USDe supply, realized revenue and the proposal's final implementation rules.
Vote first, implementation later
The proposal replaces earlier suggested parameters and leaves several implementation questions for later governance work. Supporting analysis from Blockworks Advisory and OAK Research discusses how a revenue take could reduce funds available for sUSDe yield, partner payouts and other programs, while recommending clearer benchmarks, reserves and reporting.
The practical sequence is therefore clear: tokenholders must vote, USDe must cross the relevant supply threshold, and the protocol must publish enough buyback and revenue data for the mechanism to be checked. Until those steps occur, ENA holders have a proposed value-accrual framework rather than a live distribution.
The market response is separate from execution. CoinDesk reported ENA up 23% over 24 hours to about $0.17 as the broader crypto market rallied. That move does not establish that the buyback will happen, that the accelerated unlocks will reduce selling pressure, or that the protocol's economics have improved; the vote, the October unlock event and the later framework publication remain the relevant checkpoints.
