Ethena’s native token, ENA, saw a sharp rise in network growth and whale activity, with new wallet creation hitting a three-month high and large-holder movements reaching a five-week peak. The surge followed a series of high-impact events, most notably Grayscale’s addition of ENA to its DeFi Fund on May 7 with a 13.59% weighting. This institutional endorsement gave the token greater exposure and may have contributed to fresh wallet creation linked to custody and fund flows.
Additional attention came from a $310 million USDC transfer from an Ethena-linked wallet on May 8, often interpreted by traders as a signal of liquidity or treasury operations. A brief suspension of the LayerZero bridge on May 9 kept the protocol under market scrutiny. Together, these events aligned with a measurable spike in on-chain activity by May 12, according to Santiment data.
Meanwhile, the Ethena Foundation confirmed that conditions for a fee switch vote have been met. The upcoming governance decision could alter protocol revenue distribution, creating positioning incentives for large holders and adding to whale activity ahead of the vote.
Separately, on May 14, Ethena Labs announced that the ENA token will be onboarded to the Solana blockchain via the cross-chain protocol Sunrise DeFi. The expansion aims to tap into Solana’s high-speed, low-fee DeFi ecosystem, potentially boosting liquidity and user engagement for ENA across chains. No rollout timeline was provided.
