USDe becoming available for deposit on Ether.fi in exchange for liquid restaking token

Ethena ENA -4.44% has announced a partnership that will allow users to deposit USDe on Ether.fi in exchange for a new liquid restaking token, or LRT.

Dubbed eUSDe, the new LRT will also provide a dollar-pegged asset for EigenLayer restaking, according to a statement.

"As the first ever dollar-pegged collateral usable within EigenLayer, the eUSDe LRT will provide a unique opportunity for restakers across systems and protocols to utilize less volatile collateral for their restaking activities" the statement said.

Ether.fi has over $5.7 billion in total value locked, according to crypto data platform DeFi Llama.

"As part of the Ethena and Eigenlayer integration, Ether.fi’s USDe vault will allow users to deposit a number of different stablecoins in return for the new eUSDe LRT, which will be used to secure other systems and protocols as part of generalized restaking," the statement said.

Ethena uses a derivates trading strategy to maintain the stability of its USDe synthetic dollar by taking short positions in ETH or ETH-related derivatives to offset losses in the backing ETH collateral. 

Last month, Ethena Labs announced a new integration that allows users to buy and sell its USDe stablecoin on Solana.