Ethena and NEAR closed the week among the strongest crypto performers, with ENA/sENA gaining around 49% over seven days and NEAR climbing roughly 41%, according to Santiment. The one-day snapshot showed ENA/sENA up roughly 17% and NEAR around 15%, while SUI added about 20% and Chainlink rose approximately 15%.
The rally was not isolated to a few tokens. Santiment reported that 93 of the top 100 assets it tracks were higher on the day, with altcoin participation reaching a three-month high. This broad rotation helped amplify moves in Ethena and NEAR as capital spread beyond Bitcoin and into higher-risk parts of the crypto market.
For Ethena, the advance extended a September rally rather than reacting to one new catalyst. The Ethena Foundation reportedly bought out early investor positions, and governance backed a fee-switch plan that could eventually direct 95% of net protocol revenue toward ENA buybacks once conditions are met. Ethena Pay has also featured in the project narrative, although traders are also watching the approaching final large investor token release, which can create supply risk.
Ethena then added a more concrete driver. The project is expanding USDe backing into tokenized equities through Binance, using Binance bStocks as spot collateral and USDT-denominated equity perpetuals for hedging. The structure follows the same delta-neutral model Ethena has used for crypto assets, and Ethena said it expands the potential collateral market from roughly $2.5 trillion in crypto assets to a real-world asset market above $150 trillion. Binance has more than $2.9 billion in open interest in equity perpetual futures, and Ethena said equity-based trading averaged about 11% annualized over the previous six months, with open interest growing about 30% per month over three months.
ENA traded near $0.2432 after the announcement, up about 19% over 24 hours. USDe supply stood near $4.9 billion, according to The Block. Ethena said it had captured more than $15 billion in crypto perpetual opportunities in its previous cycle and expects the equity market opportunity to go well beyond that. The partnership also gives eligible delta-neutral accounts, including Ethena, lower auto-deleveraging priority on Binance, which Ethena described as another risk measure for USDe holders.
NEAR’s performance had a clearer network-activity component. NEAR Intents, its cross-chain transaction infrastructure, processed approximately $29.3 billion in cumulative volume, including about $842 million over seven days and a record single day above $300 million on September 18. The network also expanded privacy-focused functionality, including confidential deposits and withdrawals for perpetual futures trading. Some of the growth is linked to Zcash, meaning higher ZEC valuations can increase the dollar value inside the system without representing an equal amount of fresh capital entering NEAR.
