Standard Chartered has forecast a sharp rise for Ethena’s ENA token, but the projection depends on the protocol rebuilding its synthetic-dollar business and turning future revenue into token buybacks.
The bank initiated coverage with a year-end 2028 target of $2, compared with about $0.28 currently, according to CryptoSlate. Its forecast calls for ENA to reach $0.42 by the end of 2026 and $1.10 in 2027 before a further acceleration in 2028.
That path would give ENA stronger returns than the gains Standard Chartered expects from Bitcoin and Ethereum over the same period. The forecast is not based only on a higher token price or broader crypto-market growth. It assumes Ethena can expand USDe, find new sources of yield and direct a substantial share of qualifying revenue toward ENA purchases.
USDe must recover before the forecast can work
USDe is a synthetic dollar designed to maintain a stable value through a trading structure that combines long spot crypto positions with short perpetual futures. The opposing positions are intended to keep overall market exposure broadly delta-neutral while allowing Ethena to earn funding payments.
The product grew rapidly after its launch in late 2023 and at one point exceeded $10 billion in supply. Its yield-bearing counterpart, sUSDe, also benefited when the strategy generated returns above 20%.
Those conditions have weakened. As crypto funding rates compressed and the trade became more crowded, USDe supply declined to about $4.9 billion. Standard Chartered estimates Ethena’s blended yield across its strategies at approximately 5.2% today.
The bank’s target assumes a major reversal. It expects USDe to reach $40 billion by 2028, meaning the protocol would first need to recover its earlier peak and then expand to roughly four times that level.
Ethena has broadened its activities as returns from the original crypto basis trade have fallen. Its yield sources now include DeFi lending, institutional lending, liquid stablecoins and real-world assets. The protocol is also developing basis trades linked to equities and commodities, as well as businesses such as white-label stablecoins and Ethena Pay.
New yield sources are central to the growth case
Standard Chartered’s thesis depends on Ethena finding enough opportunities outside crypto derivatives to support a much larger USDe base. The bank projects tokenized assets, including stablecoins and other real-world assets, will grow to about $4 trillion by the end of 2028 from roughly $350 billion currently. It also expects real-world assets deployed on blockchains to increase from approximately $40 billion to $2 trillion.
If that expansion occurs, Ethena would have a broader pool of collateral and potential yield sources. That could allow USDe to grow without relying entirely on exceptionally high perpetual-futures funding rates. However, the larger market forecast does not remove the protocol’s immediate operational test.
Ethena’s approved fee-switch framework begins at $7.5 billion of USDe supply. With supply currently around $4.9 billion, the protocol remains below the first threshold tied to the revenue mechanism supporting Standard Chartered’s valuation.
The framework allocates 95% of qualifying net revenue paid to the Ethena Foundation from covered businesses toward ENA buybacks. Because Ethena does not retain all of the yield generated by assets supporting USDe, the difference between gross revenue and net revenue is important to the economics.
Blockworks Advisory modeled the protocol’s share of gross revenue rising with USDe supply. Its analysis used a share of about 5% around $7.5 billion of supply, increasing to 20% at $20 billion, alongside a 6% illustrative protocol yield. That yield is an assumption in the model, not a guaranteed return.
Buybacks could support ENA, but create a trade-off
At $40 billion of USDe supply, Standard Chartered estimates ENA purchases could equal roughly 23% of the token’s current market value each year if the price did not change. The bank does not expect that ratio to remain constant. Its view is that investors would value the expected buybacks, lift ENA’s price and thereby reduce purchases as a percentage of the token’s market capitalization.
The bank cited Uniswap as a comparison, saying UNI’s annualized buyback percentage settled at about 3% to 4% after the token’s fee switch was activated. A similar long-term balance for Ethena is part of the reasoning behind the $2 target.
The buyback model also presents a potential tension. Directing more revenue to ENA purchases can leave less available to support sUSDe returns. Ethena therefore needs to maintain yields attractive enough to draw the deposits required for USDe growth while retaining sufficient margin for token buybacks.
The assumptions will face several tests before the 2028 valuation becomes relevant: USDe must exceed $7.5 billion, recover its previous peak and demonstrate that newer strategies can handle tens of billions of dollars without sharply reducing returns.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar data at 09:44 on October 1, 2026, showed Bitcoin at $83,826.60, up 0.39% over 24 hours and 0.83% over seven days. Ethereum was $2,694.36 at 09:43, with gains of 0.25% over 24 hours and 2.05% over seven days.
Uniswap, the comparison cited in the buyback discussion, stood at $9.07 at 09:44, up 2.60% over 24 hours and 1.97% over seven days. Shiba Inu was $0.0000057517 at 09:43, down 1.30% over 24 hours but up 2.97% over seven days.
