On 3 September Ethena launched Ethena Pay, an app for saving, sending and spending that pays up to 6% on eligible balances. It works like any banking app. But Ethena is not a bank and holds no dollars: balances sit in USDe, the synthetic dollar Ethena issues itself, backed by a cash-and-carry trade, a futures markets trading strategy that has been used for decades.
That puts Ethena in the same economic position as a bank. Any business holding customer balances earns something on money that is sitting still and hands back only part of it. In banking the spread is called net interest margin, and it is the largest single revenue line at most neobanks: roughly 34% of Robinhood’s 2025 revenue and 22% of Revolut’s. Robinhood shares it with the partner banks that actually hold the deposits.
The same applies onchain. A neobank that holds USDC or USDT is a distribution channel for Circle or Tether, and the income on the reserves backing those dollars goes to the issuer. Ethena issues the dollar itself, so the margin on the balance and the relationship with the customer sit in one company. That leaves room to charge lower fees, pay a higher rate, or both.
Ethena-issued assets already back Robinhood’s Earn product, and Ethena Pay now reaches consumers directly. Those are the two routes onchain finance has into everyday banking: through platforms people already use, and through new apps. Banks, brokers and stablecoin issuers are converging on the same set of services. Blockchain gives new entrants another way to compete for the customer relationship, and it can stay behind the scenes while they do it.
This week’s market
- BGCI Index -4.90%
- Bitcoin –3.09%
- Ethereum 0.22%
- Solana -2.34%
All figures are week-to-date as of today 15:00 CET
Theta Blockchain Ventures content
- Ruud Smets, Managing Partner and CIO Theta Capital, with a brief update on what we believe is an important shift in blockchain adoption (watch here)
Blockchain news
- Nasdaq Invests $100 Million in Kraken Parent Payward at $21 Billion Valuation (learn more)
- Tether and Fasanara Launch $400 Million Fund for Stablecoin-Enabled Private Credit (learn more)
- Circle Agrees to Buy Cross-Border Payments Firm Tazapay for $400 Million (learn more)
- PayPal Expands Stablecoin Rails with Custom Token Issuance Platform (learn more)
- U.S. Bank Takes Next Step Towards Launching Its Stablecoin with Cross-Border Payment Test (learn more)
- DBS and Citi Complete Weekend Dollar Payment via Swift’s Digital Ledger Using Tokenized Deposits (learn more)
- Block Seeks OCC Charter for Uninsured Bitcoin and Stablecoin Custody Bank (learn more)
- Visa Combines VisaNet Data with Onchain Lending to Power Stablecoin Card Working Capital (learn more)
- MoneyGram unveils stablecoin-backed card (learn more)
- European Securities and Markets Authority questions Polymarket and Kalshi’s EU access (learn more)
Relevant financial updates
- TRM Labs, an AI investigations company helping to fight modern crime, has raised a new round led by Blockchain Capital, valuing the company at $2 billion.
- Tazapay*, a cross-border payments firm, has been acquired by Circle* for $400mln
- Payward (Kraken)*, a finance and centralized exchange company, has raised $100mln in a Strategic round with investments from Nasdaq Ventures at a $21bln valuation
- Latitude, a finance and payments company, has raised $35mln in a Series A round led by Oakhill Capital with investments from CB Ventures, NEA, Faction VC, OpenFX, Wilson Sonsini
- Cari Network, a blockchain payments company, has raised $32.5mln in a funding round with investments from First Horizon Bank, Huntington Bank, and 5 others
- Axis Robotics, an infrastructure and developer tools company, has raised $12mln in a Pre-Seed/Seed round led by Hack VC and 4 others
*Underlying TBV portfolio position | Prices as per 11/09
Interesting things to read and listen to
- Introducing Ethena Pay (read here)
- When throughput is not enough: What financial markets need from blockchains, by a16z crypto (read here)
- Who Gets to Tokenize a Stock Without Asking? with former SEC’s Head of Trading & markets Brett Redfearn (listen here)