Terminal Finance, a decentralized exchange (DEX) incubated by Ethena, has announced it accrued over $280 million in pre-launch total value locked (TVL), highlighting robust demand for its yield-bearing stablecoin and institutional asset trading platform. This milestone was achieved after three vaults reached capacity with 225 million USDe, 10,000 WETH, and 100 WBTC, showcasing the platform's focus on composable assets within the Ethena ecosystem.
The Seoul-based DEX, set to launch later this year with its token generation event (TGE) aligned, leverages core pairing assets like USDe, sUSDe, and USDtb—the latter backed by BlackRock's BUIDL fund—to enable trading against major cryptocurrencies such as ETH and BTC. Co-founder and CEO Sam Benyakoub explained the strategic advantage: "At Terminal, we’re building the deepest liquidity pools to trade Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, against any asset, from crypto to tokenized real-world assets. By designing the DEX around a yield-bearing dollar, Terminal benefits from improved economics by default, setting a new standard for capital productivity in DeFi."
A key innovation is the Yield Skimming mechanism, which captures yield from assets like sUSDe and reinjects it into the platform, creating a flywheel effect that enhances returns for liquidity providers, traders, and token holders. This approach addresses sustainability issues in traditional DEX models, where liquidity incentives often lead to unsustainable dynamics.
Community engagement has been substantial, with over 10,000 wallets participating in the pre-deposit phase; early supporters will receive airdrop rewards post-TGE. Additionally, up to 10% of Terminal's governance token supply may be distributed to sENA holders via the Terminal Points system, which began tracking activity on June 28, though final eligibility and allocation details are pending confirmation.
Nick Chong, head of strategy at Ethena, underscored the broader impact: "Ethena assets have become an engine for DeFi rewards, powering most major Ethereum-based applications at a billion-dollar scale. The Terminal team has taken this concept, building their spot DEX using sUSDe at its core, to drive additional value to users." Terminal has also integrated with prominent DeFi protocols like Pendle, EtherFi, and Morpho, and plans to expand across multiple chains to become a leading liquidity hub for yield-bearing stablecoins.
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