Ethena Price Drops After BitMex Founder Arthur Hayes Moves Tokens

Ethena’s price experienced a notable dip after on-chain data revealed that Arthur Hayes, the co-founder of BitMEX, moved a significant amount of tokens. Following his transactions, Ethena’s token price retreated to $1.10, a drop of over 16% from its intraday high of $1.2240. This marked a sharp decline after the cryptocurrency had surged earlier in December.

Hayes transferred 7 million ENA tokens, worth approximately $8.47 million, to Binance. Moving tokens from a self-custody wallet typically signals an intention to sell, which likely contributed to the downward price movement. Hayes now holds around 7.19 million ENA tokens, valued at over $8.5 million, in addition to other assets like Ethereum and Wilder World.

This selling activity followed the acquisition of 741,687 ENA tokens by Donald Trump’s World Liberty Finance (WLFI) for $823,000. This prompted Ethena to propose a deeper partnership with WLFI, which could involve integrating sUSDe into WLFI’s upcoming decentralized finance (DeFi) platform.

On a positive note, Ethena’s ecosystem saw a significant milestone with the total value locked (TVL) in its USDe stablecoin surpassing $6 billion. This achievement made USDe the third-largest stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market, following Tether and USD Coin. The growth of USDe has been largely driven by its attractive yield offering, which is currently set at 12%, far surpassing the returns from US government bonds and most dividend ETFs.

Additionally, Polymarket users have expressed confidence that USDe will maintain its $1 peg throughout 2024, with odds of it falling below 90 cents being notably low. This sentiment contrasts with earlier fears, reminiscent of the collapse of Terra’s stablecoin.

Ethena also recently launched USDtb, a new stablecoin backed by BlackRock, which manages assets worth over $11.5 trillion. This partnership further bolsters the credibility and growth potential of Ethena’s ecosystem.

From a technical perspective, Ethena’s price has shown strong growth since bottoming at $0.1951 in September, increasing by 445% to its current price of $1.08. The coin is trading above its 50-day moving average and has successfully surpassed the psychological $1.00 level. Analysts believe that the token is forming a cup and handle pattern, with a potential target of $1.5197 if it breaks above the month’s high of $1.3275. This suggests that further price gains are likely if the upward momentum continues, with a 42% upside potential from its current price.