Ethena buys back tokens from early investors who sold ENA

The Ethena Foundation announces four major changes to the Ethena ecosystem. The foundation buys back all locked tokens from early investors who have sold ENA over the past nine months, reaches an agreement with Ethena Labs on ownership rights, launches a governance vote on buying back ENA with protocol revenues, and abolishes the monthly release of investor tokens.

ENA is available at OKX and Bybit.

In brief:

• Ethena Foundation buys back locked tokens from early investors who sold ENA over the past nine months.
• A governance proposal has been submitted to use the protocol’s net revenues for automatic buybacks of ENA.
• The monthly release of investor tokens is abolished; team tokens remain locked.

Buyout of investors who sold ENA

The Ethena Foundation has bought back all locked tokens from certain large early investors who sold ENA over the past nine months. In doing so, the foundation retrieves these tokens before they would have been released on a regular schedule.

At the same time, the Ethena Foundation and Ethena Labs entered into a so-called Master Framework Agreement. This stipulates that all intellectual property rights and the value built up by the protocol will reside exclusively with the foundation. Shareholders of Ethena Labs will no longer receive profit distributions from the protocol; control now lies with token holders.

Buyback of ENA through protocol revenues

A governance proposal is now before the community for the implementation of a so-called fee switch. If this proposal is adopted, all net revenues generated under the Ethena brand will automatically be used to buy back ENA. The proposal has already been approved by the Risk Committee and is now open for voting.

As a fourth measure, the Ethena Foundation and the main investors abolish the monthly release of investor tokens. All investor tokens not yet released will be released in one go, so that no monthly selling pressure will be created on the market. Team tokens will remain locked according to the original schedules.

The announcement is intended to better align the interests of token holders with those of the protocol, and to remove uncertainty about future releases. Whether the governance proposal on revenue allocation is adopted depends on the outcome of the vote.