Custody you can trust: Securely supporting USDtb

Portugal – Ethena Labs (“Ethena”) today (Monday) announced the launch of USDtb, a new stablecoin product that functions similarly to traditional fiat stablecoins, such as USDC and USDT. USDtb provides an entirely differentiated risk profile compared to USDe, Ethena’s flagship synthetic dollar offering, with a dollar peg backed by reserve assets equal to the $USD value of every USDtb issued.

The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (“BUIDL”) – tokenized by Securitize, the global leader in tokenizing real-world assets – makes up more than 90% of USDtb’s reserves. This backing represents the largest BUIDL allocation of any stablecoin, allowing USDtb to scale without practical constraints. Additionally, following Ethena and Securitize’s submission of a joint application, USDtb is being considered for an allocation from the Spark Tokenization Grand Prix, potentially providing up to $1 billion in USDtb to Sky (formerly MakerDAO).

The launch of USDtb follows the Ethena Risk Committee’s recent approval of a proposal to onboard USDtb as a backing asset for USDe. This will allow Ethena to close the hedging positions underlying USDe and reallocate its backing assets to USDtb during periods of negative funding rates, further diminishing related risks. In the future, USDtb may also serve as margin collateral (as an alternative to USDe) on several centralized exchanges – potentially including Bybit, Deribit and Bitget, as well as others that Ethena has not yet partnered with.

“In light of the rapidly accelerating demand for different stablecoin options, we saw a clear opportunity to provide a new product that offers users an entirely different risk profile from USDe without them having to leave our trusted ecosystem,” said Guy Young, Founder of Ethena. “We’re thrilled to be partnering with Securitize to allocate a vast majority of USDtb’s reserves to BUIDL, as it immediately makes USDtb one of the safest and most secure stablecoins available. Today’s launch represents a tremendous milestone for the protocol, and we look forward to exploring all the ways in which USDtb can drive value for our users and exchange partners.”

“For institutions looking to fortify their reserves, BUIDL stands out as a transformative offering given its intrinsic, yield-generating stability,” said Carlos Domingo, Co-founder and CEO of Securitize. “The launch of USDtb is redefining what’s possible in stablecoin innovation with BUIDL as the cornerstone and builds on the partnership that began with BUIDL’s backing of Ethena’s USDe reserve fund.”

Julian Sawyer, CEO at Zodia Custody adds, “We are proud to be a key partner in the launch of USDtb. This collaboration reflects our leadership in securely enabling the next frontier of digital finance while ensuring the highest standards of compliance, security, and trust. USDtb represents a significant step forward in the evolution of stablecoins, and we are excited to play a critical role in supporting its success.”

“We’re delighted to bring Zodia Custody on board as a custodian of USDtb’s backing assets,” said Guy Young, founder of Ethena. “In launching USDtb, we’ve made every effort to ensure that it is immediately one of the safest and most reliable stablecoins on the market. Our partnership with Zodia Custody, one of the most well respected and secure custodians operating today, is an important part of those efforts.”