BlackRock Adds Ethena’s USDe to $20T Aladdin Platform as ENA Price Falters

BlackRock is moving deeper into decentralized finance with the latest play being a partnership with Ethena. Despite the scale of the collaboration, the ENA price tumbled by nearly 14% over the last day, sparking concerns for an even steeper drop for the token.

BlackRock inks a partnership with Ethena, ENA slides 

According to an official announcement, the partnership will see BlackRock integrate Ethena’s yield-bearing stablecoin, USDe, into Aladdin, the asset manager’s investment management platform. 

Aladdin unifies portfolio management, risk analytics, trade execution, and compliance for over 1,000 institutional users spanning banks, pension funds, and asset managers. With over $20 trillion in combined assets, the integration will support institutional monitoring of stablecoin exposure with additional cases in tokenized finance and RWAs.

“The integration of USDe on Aladdin provides unique institutional access for the over 20 trillion of assets managed by financial institutions on Aladdin,” said Ethena in a statement.

Furthermore, Ethena announced that BlackRock’s tokenized market fund BUIDL will be the primary asset for its incoming white-label product. Ethena also rolled out a $100 million liquidity facility for BUIDL holders to exchange their holdings for a range of supported stablecoins outside traditional market hours.

“This liquidity facility enables a level of frictionless interoperability that is core to the unique utility that tokenizing treasury funds makes possible,” said Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets.

The raft of announcements did little to stop the ENA price slide, with the native token falling by 8.5% over the last day to trade at $0.07164. However, the collaboration with BlackRock sparked a trading frenzy, sending daily volumes surging by 169% over a 24-hour timeframe. 

A streak of partnerships for both parties

Both BlackRock and Ethena have waded beyond their turf to expand the scope of their offerings. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is exploring collaborations with digital asset players, while Ethena is advancing its streak of partnerships.

Early in the month, asset manager Janus Henderson announced an investment of $480 billion in ENA. The $480 billion asset manager also disclosed plans to use USDe for treasury management operations, hinting at a token distribution model via exchange-traded products.

Previously, Ethena invested $200 million in Securitize’s tokenized fund on Solana, cementing its place in tokenized credit markets. Coinbase Ventures also invested in the DeFi project, teeing up a pathway for Coinbase users to access a range of Ethena’s product offerings. 

On the flip side, BlackRock delved deeper into DeFi with a partnership with Uniswap, investing an undisclosed amount in the UNI token. BUIDL has seen the asset manager forge partnerships with crypto-native companies, including Securitize, Circle, Ondo Finance, Coinbase, and Avalanche.