Stablecoins have become a battleground for all key players.

Written by: Eric, Foresight News

On June 9, 2026, stablecoin protocol Ethena announced a strategic partnership with Janus Henderson. Janus Henderson, a global asset management giant overseeing approximately $480 billion in assets, not only acquired Ethena's governance token ENA via its blockchain investment platform ANTIK but also included USDe in its treasury cash management tools and plans to distribute USDe to its institutional clients through Exchange-Traded Products (ETPs). Meanwhile, Ethena integrated Janus Henderson's AAA-rated CLO fund JAAA into USDe's reserve asset portfolio.

This is not a simple financial investment but a complete closed loop covering asset supply, tokenization infrastructure, on-chain distribution, and compliant product development. It marks Ethena's formal entry from a DeFi-native protocol into the core of traditional finance; it also signifies that Wall Street giants are proactively embedding themselves into the stablecoin ecosystem with a slightly anxious posture.

From Delta Neutral to "A Little Bit of Everything"

Ethena first rose to fame with its Delta-neutral stablecoin USDe. Its mechanism is not complicated: users deposit ETH or BTC as collateral, and the protocol opens an equivalent perpetual futures short position on centralized exchanges. The spot long and futures short positions hedge each other, keeping the portfolio net value relatively stable regardless of market ups and downs. Meanwhile, the staking收益 from collateral and the funding rate income from perpetual contracts are combined to provide sUSDe (staked version of USDe) with a yield far higher than traditional financial products.

This model expanded rapidly during the 2024 bull market, with USDe's market capitalization once exceeding $9 billion, becoming the third-largest stablecoin after USDT and USDC. However, the inherent flaw of the Delta-neutral strategy soon became apparent: its yield is highly dependent on the funding rate of perpetual contracts. In a bull market, long sentiment is high and rates remain elevated; once the market turns bearish or enters a volatile period, the funding rate turns negative, and the entire revenue engine stalls. During the October 2025 market crash, USDe's market capitalization evaporated by 60%, and the ENA token price once fell by 83%.

The crisis forced a transformation. Ethena's first response was to launch USDtb, which is more similar to traditional stablecoins, with 90% of its reserves invested in BlackRock's BUIDL tokenized money market fund, which invests in short-term high-liquidity assets such as U.S. Treasuries and repurchase agreements. USDtb's yield is much lower than sUSDe, but it provides a safe haven mechanism in an environment of negative funding rates.

A more landmark step occurred in April 2026. Ethena carried out its largest-ever restructuring of USDe's collateral structure: the proportion of perpetual contract positions was drastically reduced to only about 20%, replaced by stablecoin reserves, DeFi lending exposures, CLOs (Collateralized Loan Obligations), investment-grade corporate bond funds, and short-term credit assets. Founder Guy Young clearly stated that expanding USDe's reserve base to institutional-grade traditional assets has been the core strategic goal since the beginning of 2026.

At this point, USDe has completed its transformation from a "pure Delta-neutral crypto synthetic product" to a "hybrid RWA-collateralized stablecoin". It is no longer a purely on-chain native product but a composite financial tool that embraces U.S. Treasuries, corporate credit, and CLOs—"a little bit of everything".

The Deep Logic of the Four-Layer Partnership

The cooperation with Janus Henderson is a natural extension of this transformation path and the most institutionalized move to date. The cooperation framework includes four layers:

The first layer is the interconnection of reserve assets. Ethena allocates capital to Janus Henderson's JAAA fund—a AAA-rated CLO product— which is tokenized on-chain via Centrifuge and then included in USDe's reserves. This means USDe's collateral has expanded from U.S. Treasuries and cryptocurrencies to the corporate credit sector for the first time, further diversifying its revenue sources.

The second layer is strategic investment. Janus Henderson acquired ENA tokens via ANTIK. This is not a traditional equity subscription but a direct acquisition of governance rights in the DeFi protocol—by holding governance tokens, traditional asset managers can participate in adjusting protocol parameters, electing risk committees, and voting on reserve strategies. BlackRock previously invested in UNI tokens, and Apollo Global Management also holds Morpho's governance tokens. This model is becoming the standard paradigm for traditional finance to "participate in DeFi".

The third layer is treasury cash management. Janus Henderson including sUSDe in its cash management tools means that this $480 billion asset management giant is willing to expose part of its operating funds to Ethena's yield model. This is of great significance for USDe's credit endorsement—when an asset management company uses its own balance sheet to enhance the credibility of a stablecoin, it conveys not only recognition of its yield but also trust in the protocol's risk control and compliance framework.

The fourth and most forward-looking layer is the joint development of ETP products. The two parties plan to launch exchange-traded products for USDe and ENA in the second half of 2026, packaging stablecoins and governance tokens into securities that traditional financial institution clients can purchase compliantly. This means Janus Henderson is not just using USDe but also helping Ethena sell USDe: transforming from an asset supplier to a distribution channel.

With these four layers combined, Janus Henderson plays four roles simultaneously: investor, user, asset supplier, and distributor. This is the first time in the history of cooperation between traditional finance and DeFi.

Why is Wall Street "Lowering Its Status"?

This leads to the core question of the article: Why would a Wall Street giant like Janus Henderson be willing to lower its status to become a distribution channel for a stablecoin protocol?

The answer lies in a larger structural anxiety.

In July 2025, the U.S. GENIUS Act was officially signed into law, which is the first comprehensive regulatory framework for payment stablecoins at the federal level. The act requires stablecoin issuers to hold fully (100%) high-liquidity reserves (cash, U.S. Treasuries, or repurchase agreements), be regulated by the OCC and the Federal Reserve, and publicly disclose reserve proofs regularly. The core effect of the act is to eliminate the "regulatory arbitrage" space in the stablecoin industry while giving traditional financial institutions a clear entry ticket.

After regulatory clarity, the competition in stablecoins has shifted from "who can bypass the rules" to "who can build the largest distribution network within the rules". And the participants in this track are no longer just crypto-native companies. PayPal's PYUSD grew by 753% in 2025; Western Union plans to issue its own stablecoin on Solana; institutions like Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale are actively laying out their strategies. BlackRock's BUIDL fund has become the underlying reserve asset for multiple stablecoins, from Ethena's USDtb to Frax's frxUSD and Jupiter's JupUSD.

For traditional asset management companies like Janus Henderson, anxiety comes from three levels:

First is the strategic pressure of "tokenize or be tokenized". BlackRock has proven through BUIDL that the world's largest asset management company can completely tokenize the assets it manages and make them the infrastructure of the DeFi ecosystem. If traditional asset management companies do not actively participate in this process, their assets will be "packaged" and distributed by other tokenization platforms, leaving them only as passive asset suppliers and losing control over channels.

Second is the pressure of yield. In the downward cycle of U.S. interest rates, the attractiveness of traditional fixed-income products decreases, while products like sUSDe can still provide yields higher than money market funds and short-term Treasuries even after transformation. For asset management companies, accessing such products is not only for optimizing the yield of their own treasury management but also for retaining yield-sensitive institutional clients.

The most fundamental anxiety lies in entry control. Stablecoins are becoming the settlement layer of the global digital economy: in 2024, the annual on-chain transaction volume of stablecoins reached $27.6 trillion, exceeding Visa's $14 trillion. In this new system, whoever controls the issuance and distribution of stablecoins controls the entry point of funds. Traditional financial institutions know this well: if they do not participate in stablecoin distribution, tech companies, payment platforms, and crypto-native protocols will bypass them and directly connect with end users.

Janus Henderson's choice to cooperate with Ethena is essentially a "retreat to advance" strategy. It accepts its disadvantages in on-chain infrastructure and protocol innovation, and instead uses its regulatory licenses, client network, and brand reputation to gain a place in the emerging stablecoin system. By becoming a distribution channel for USDe, it not only shares the growth dividends of the stablecoin market but also ensures that it will not be excluded from the next generation of financial infrastructure.

Conclusion

Ethena's transformation story is, to some extent, a microcosm of the entire DeFi industry. From initially holding high the banner of "decentralization, censorship resistance, and independence from traditional banks" to proactively embracing BlackRock's BUIDL, Janus Henderson's CLO fund, and regulated ETP products, Ethena is rebuilding its foundation with the bricks of traditional finance.

Wall Street giants are also undergoing a subtle psychological shift. They no longer look down on DeFi but begin to proactively embed themselves in it—not as disruptors, but as channels, distributors, and holders of governance tokens. Behind this "lowering of status" is anxiety about the future: in a world where stablecoins may become mainstream settlement tools, not participating is riskier than participating.

The cooperation between Ethena and Janus Henderson may be just a ripple in the wave of financial infrastructure reconstruction. But it clearly reveals a trend: the boundary between traditional finance and decentralized finance is melting, and stablecoins are the core battlefield of this integration.