Standard Chartered has initiated coverage of Ethena with an end-2028 target of $2 on ENA, against about $0.26 today.
The reasoning arrives at that number by a route worth following. The bank calculates that at $40 billion of USDe supply, annualised buybacks would absorb 23% of ENA’s circulating value, and calls that unsustainable.
Its conclusion is that the price therefore has to rise.
The Argument in Full
The thesis has two halves. USDe supply grows from about $4.9 billion now to $40 billion by the end of 2028, roughly eight times, as yield generation broadens out of crypto basis trades into real-world assets, DeFi lending and equity-linked trades. The bank assumes tokenised assets reach $4 trillion over the same period.
The second half is the token mechanics. Ethena’s fee switch directs protocol revenue into ENA buybacks, so a larger USDe supply means a larger buyback. Run that against today’s market capitalisation of $2.65 billion and the buyback becomes implausibly large relative to the token, at 23% of circulating value a year.
Standard Chartered’s words are that “for these buybacks to be sustainable, the ENA token price will rise.”
There Are Three Ways That Ratio Falls
A buyback consuming 23% of a token’s circulating value is genuinely unsustainable. Everyone agrees on the problem. The question is which variable moves.
The first is price, which is what the bank has priced. The second is the buyback, which could simply be smaller if governance allocates less revenue to it. That option exists and is not in the target.
The third is supply, and it is the one nobody mentions. ENA has 10.1 billion tokens circulating against a total supply of 15 billion, so about 33% has yet to reach the market. If it does, circulating value rises by nearly half at an unchanged price, and the 23% ratio falls to roughly 15% on its own.
Unlocks resolve the arithmetic without the price moving at all.
The Precedent Cited Cuts Both Ways
The bank points at Uniswap, whose fee switch went live in December 2025 and whose buyback rate settled at roughly 3% to 4% after UNI tripled.
That is offered as evidence the ratio normalises through appreciation. It is equally evidence that a ratio normalises, full stop, and the mechanism is not fixed in advance.
The Mechanism Has an Open Regulatory Question
Four days ago the SEC narrowed its guidance on token buybacks, adding a requirement that a protocol have no central party for a buyback announcement to stay clear of securities law.
Ethena is the single protocol the guidance names as requiring a facts-and-circumstances analysis rather than a clean answer. The buyback that the entire $2 target depends on is the one with an unresolved regulatory position.
ENA is up about 75% over thirty days and remains 83% below its all-time high of $1.52. Standard Chartered lists slower growth in yield-bearing stablecoins and weaker real-world asset deployment as its own risks. The buyback question is not on that list.
