Ethena-USDe rise rapidly, MakerDAO becomes an unexpected beneficiary

Recently, the total issuance of USDe has experienced an explosive rise, soaring from 2.4 billion USD to 3.8 billion USD within a month, with a monthly increase of over 58%. This growth trend is mainly driven by the surge in Bitcoin prices, which has heightened market bullish sentiment, leading to an increase in funding rates and consequently boosting the staking yield of USDe. Although there has been a slight pullback in recent days, the annualized yield of USDe remained at a high level of around 25% on November 26.

At the same time, MakerDAO, as an invisible beneficiary, has seen its daily revenue rise more than 200% compared to a month ago, setting a new historical high. This rise is closely related to Ethena. On one hand, the high staking yield of USDe has brought huge lending demand for sUSDe and PT assets. On the Morpho platform, the total scale of borrowing DAI using sUSDe and PT as collateral has reached approximately 570 million USD, with a borrowing utilization rate exceeding 80% and an annual deposit yield as high as 12%. In the past month, the loan increment issued by the Maker D3M module through Morpho has exceeded 300 million USD.

In addition to direct pathways, the lending demand for sUSDe and PT has also indirectly driven up the DAI usage rate through other channels, with the DAI deposit interest rate on a certain lending platform reaching 8.5%. MakerDAO's balance sheet shows that the total DAI loans issued to two major lending platforms through the D3M module amount to 2 billion USD, accounting for nearly 40% of its asset side. These two alone have generated an annualized income of 203 million USD for MakerDAO, equivalent to 550,000 USD per day, which represents 54% of its total annualized income.

The rise path of USDe has become clear: the optimistic sentiment brought by Bitcoin's new highs boosts the funding rates, which in turn affects the USDe staking yield. MakerDAO, with its complete and highly liquid funding links and the "central bank attributes" of the D3M module, has become an important support for the USDe ecosystem. A certain lending protocol plays the role of a "lubricant" in this process. These three protocols form the core of the rise, while other peripheral protocols such as a large lending platform, a mainstream DEX, and a derivatives protocol also benefit to varying degrees from the rise of USDe.

Whether this growth spiral can be sustained depends on whether the interest rate spread between USDe and DAI will exist in the long term. Factors influencing this include: the sustainability of bull market sentiment, whether Ethena can improve APY allocation efficiency through economic model optimization and market share enhancement, and the strategies of market competitors.

With the rise, concerns about the security of D3M have also arisen. Some argue that D3M belongs to "unbacked printing". However, from a balance sheet perspective, the DAI minted by D3M is collateralized by sDAI, and the underlying collateral eventually converts into a long and short synthetic asset position with over 110% LTV. Therefore, D3M does not directly lead to DAI becoming an under-collateralized stablecoin, but it does increase some risks:

1. A high proportion of the D3M module may cause DAI to once again become a "shadow stablecoin".
2. The operational risk, contract risk, and custody risk of Ethena may be transmitted to DAI.
3. The existence of intermediaries may further increase risks.
4. May reduce the overall LTV ratio of DAI

Overall, the rapid growth of USDe and the unexpected gains of MakerDAO reflect the active state of the current DeFi market, but also bring new risks and regulatory challenges.