Wintermute to take Ethena’s USDe as trading margin

As a seasoned researcher who has witnessed the meteoric rise of cryptocurrencies, I find it fascinating to see the gradual adoption of stablecoins like USDe as collateral for trades by major trading platforms such as Wintermute. This trend underscores the growing maturity and acceptance of digital assets in the mainstream financial world.


As an analyst, I’m sharing that starting from October 25th, Wintermute has expanded its acceptance of assets by accepting USDe, a cryptocurrency-backed stablecoin, as collateral for both spot crypto and derivatives trades.

Wintermute’s clients are now able to use “USDe” as security when trading options, credit default swaps, forwards, and spot trades, according to a statement made by the company on their X platform.

As an analyst, I can express it as follows: I’ve just learned that the stablecoin has been added to the list of accepted cryptocurrencies by Wintermute, joining the ranks of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), and US Dollar Coin (USDC). According to Wintermute, this expansion underscores their commitment to diversifying their crypto collateral options.

Wintermute to take Ethena’s USDe as trading margin

Related: DTCC launches digital sandbox to innovate capital market infrastructure

Trading platforms and regulators are increasingly embracing cryptocurrency as collateral for trades.

In September, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) — the United States’ central clearinghouse for securities trades — completed a pilot program exploring using tokenized US Treasury bills as trading margin.

In many cases, traders need to provide assets as a guarantee for their trades while they’re ongoing. These assets, referred to as “collateral” or “margin,” are looked after by clearinghouses who also regularly balance and adjust these trading accounts – a process often known as “settlement.

The use of stablecoins, along with other digital currencies pegged to the value of U.S. dollars, is gaining traction as essential building blocks in both trading transactions and payment systems.

In the year 2024, the overall value of all stablecoins reached unprecedented peaks, surpassing an impressive figure of $170 billion, as reported by CoinMarketCap.

On October 21st, the well-known payment processing company Stripe bought the stablecoin platform Bridge for a total of $1.1 billion.

Since its launch in 2023 by the well-known payment processor, PayPal’s US Dollar service (commonly referred to as PYUSD) has primarily been utilized for resolving corporate transactions.

Wintermute to take Ethena’s USDe as trading margin

As a researcher, I’ve observed an impressive surge in the circulating supply of USDe, a unique stablecoin introduced by Ethena Labs back in February. Currently, as per CoinMarketCap, the circulating supply stands at over $2.6 billion.

Despite being significantly smaller, it does not yet rival the market giants like Tether (USDT) and USDC, which boast approximately $120 billion and $34 billion in market capitalization each.

Ethena Labs, the issuer, enables users to create USDe tokens that can be associated with various assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), liquid staking derivatives (LSDs), and other stablecoins.

Later, Ethena takes steps to minimize the portfolio’s natural ups and downs by utilizing off-exchange financial instruments known as derivatives.

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2024-10-25 20:27