Ethena adds equities to basis trade, shutters HIP-3 market on Hyperliquid

Ethena, the protocol behind the synthetic dollar USDe, is making two big moves at once: expanding into equities and commodities as reserve backing while simultaneously pulling the plug on its HyENA deployer that had been running perpetual markets on Hyperliquid. What’s shutting down and why The HyENA deployer, which facilitated perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework, is being wound down in a sequenced delisting of 18 markets. The process runs from August 31 to September 2, 2026, giving existing users a window to close positions before the lights go off. Trade.xyz currently controls upwards of 96% of the open interest in equity perpetuals within HIP-3, which means Ethena’s deployer had become something of a bit player in a market dominated by a single competitor. The equity pivot Ethena has been running a basis trade strategy since its inception, using the spread between spot crypto holdings and short perpetual futures positions to generate yield. By April 2026, perpetual futures positions represented roughly 11% of USDe’s reserves. Ethena projects a potential 30x expansion of the total addressable market for USDe backing by tapping into equity perpetuals. Tokeni...