Ethena Launches Ethena Pay: A Neobank Using USDE Stablecoin with Savings Rates Up to 6%

On the evening of September 1, Ethena announced Ethena Pay, a digital banking (neobank) payments and savings app built on Avalanche. The most notable highlight: instead of using USDT or USDC, Ethena Pay uses the project’s own USDE stablecoin as its primary payment medium.

The app allows deposits in fiat or crypto, with balances denominated in USDE. Transfers in USD, EUR, and GBP are free, while other currencies incur a 0.05–0.1% fee depending on the destination bank. The crypto component functions as a non-custodial wallet where users retain their own private keys, supporting USDE, USDC, and USDT at launch.

Users are divided into three tiers:

• Standard: Free, with no additional requirements. 4% spending cashback, 5% USDE savings yield on up to 5,000 USD.

• Pro: Lock 2,000 USD in ENA tokens or refer 10 users. 4.5% spending cashback, 6% USDE savings yield on up to 15,000 USD.
• VIP: Lock 10,000 USD in ENA or refer 50 users. 5% spending cashback, 6% USDE savings yield on up to 55,000 USD.

Ethena Pay is already available on iOS and Android across 49 countries, but not yet in the US, EU, UK, Canada, or South Korea. Founder Guy Young stated that neobanks represent an emerging sector with the potential to introduce crypto to hundreds of millions of users.

Looking back a few days prior, Ethena bought back ENA tokens from a group of investors, moved the remaining unlock schedule to October, and began voting on a proposal to use revenue from USDE collateral backing assets to buy back ENA. Ethena Pay is anticipated to drive growth in USDE supply from 4.1 billion USD toward a 7.5 billion USD target, the initial threshold to activate the ENA buyback program.

Over the long term, Ethena Pay demonstrates a clear direction for Ethena: shifting USDE from a primarily yield-generating product into a complete everyday payment system. The success of this strategy largely depends on whether users genuinely treat the native stablecoin as a spending tool, or merely as a place to deposit funds and earn yield, as seen with most current crypto neobanks.