USDe: stablecoins rating breakdown
Ethena · synthetic, delta-neutral
The most interesting design in the category and the one that earns its holders the most: rather than holding dollars, it holds spot crypto hedged with short perpetual futures, and pays out the funding rate that hedge collects. When funding is positive, that is a genuine yield with no credit risk to a bank — and $4.04bn of supply says the market takes it seriously.
The most interesting design in the category and the one that earns its holders the most: rather than holding dollars, it holds spot crypto hedged with short perpetual futures, and pays out the funding rate that hedge collects.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What is behind it, and who verifies that | ~110% collateralisation through the October 2025 event · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 32% | 4 | 7 | 8 of 9 | -0.96 |
| Peg record, and the deviation right now | −0.0194% deviation from $1.00 · measured · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 3 | 8 | 9 of 9 | -1.25 |
| Who can freeze your balance | — | 18% | 5 | 4 | 3 of 9 | +0.18 |
| Supply and where it is accepted | $4.04bn circulating supply · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 15% | 6 | 6 | 5 of 9 | 0.00 |
| Who keeps the interest on the reserves | — | 10% | 9 | 4 | 1 of 9 | +0.50 |
Measured 27 August 2026 · weights and method · decided by peg record, and the deviation right now, worth -1.25 points against the median
What is behind it, and who verifies that: 4/10
Sourced to primary documents: what the reserves actually hold, who attests and how often, and — the distinction the industry blurs deliberately — whether that is a full audit or a point-in-time attestation. A monthly attestation by a named accounting firm and a quarterly self-published summary are not the same instrument, and neither is an audit. Crypto-backed and synthetic designs are judged on their own terms: the collateral ratio, where the collateral lives, and what it does in a drawdown.
Scored 4 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 8th of 9 among stablecoins on this criterion. At a 32% weight that is 0.96 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 3.
Peg record, and the deviation right now: 3/10
Every historical break with its date, depth and cause, plus the live deviation from $1.00 measured at a stated timestamp. Both halves matter: the current price says almost nothing on a quiet day, and the history says everything about what happens on a violent one.
Scored 3 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 9th of 9 among stablecoins on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 1.25 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 8, the worst 3.
Who can freeze your balance: 5/10
Whether the issuer can blacklist an address, whether it has actually done so, and at whose request. Nearly every fiat-backed stablecoin can freeze funds — that is not a defect, it is the design, and it is the single fact most likely to matter to a holder who never reads a reserve report. We record it as a fact rather than a moral judgement.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 4, which places it 3rd of 9 among stablecoins on this criterion. At a 18% weight that is 0.18 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 6, the worst 2.
Supply and where it is accepted: 6/10
Circulating supply and the number of chains it genuinely circulates on, from public data at a stated timestamp. Supply is the closest available proxy for whether you can exit at size without moving the price.
Scored 6 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 5th of 9 among stablecoins on this criterion. At a 15% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 4.
Who keeps the interest on the reserves: 9/10
The reserves behind a large fiat-backed stablecoin earn a market rate. We record who receives that: the issuer, the holder, or a distributor. It is the least discussed economic fact in the category and it is worth billions a year.
Scored 9 of 10 against a category median of 4, which places it 1st of 9 among stablecoins on this criterion. At a 10% weight that is 0.50 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 2.
Other measurements
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
Incidents priced into this score
- 2025-10-10 — During a $19bn market-wide liquidation cascade, USDe printed $0.65 on Binance while trading near $0.99 on-chain and on other venues. Binance’s unified-account oracle used its own thin internal order book as the price source instead of far deeper external liquidity, triggering roughly $1bn of forced liquidations. Collateralisation remained at about 110% throughout and the price recovered within hours. [users made whole: partial] [source]
Questions about this score
Did USDe actually depeg in October 2025?
+
On one venue, yes; on-chain, no. During a $19bn market-wide liquidation cascade, USDe printed $0.65 on Binance while trading near $0.99 everywhere else, because Binance's unified-account oracle used its own thin internal order book as the price source instead of far deeper external liquidity. Roughly $1bn of forced liquidations followed anyway, the protocol was about 110% collateralised the whole time, and the price recovered within hours. Roughly $8bn of supply left over the following months.
How does USDe generate yield?
+
It holds spot crypto and shorts an equivalent amount of perpetual futures, collecting the funding rate that longs pay shorts when the market is bullish. That is a hedged carry trade, not interest on a deposit: when funding turns persistently negative the yield can invert, and the hedge itself lives on centralised exchanges, so holders carry those venues' counterparty risk.