Ethena’s trading team can approve borrowers of assets backing USDe under new rules

Ethena’s October 29 institutional-lending framework sets out a route for its trading team to onboard qualifying borrowers of assets backing USDe without an individual Risk Committee vote.

The posted rules describe a change in approval authority over lending that helps back Ethena’s synthetic dollar. For USDe holders, published eligibility rules and exposure disclosures offer a way to assess that credit risk. The committee retains oversight, with borrower documents sent to it privately.

The framework posted by Kairos Research describes the delegated route; it identifies no newly funded borrower using it.

Eligibility combines bilateral lending with full recourse to the borrower or a parent guarantee, jurisdiction and standing checks, sanctions screening, segregated tri-party custody and verifiable daily collateral reports. The custody arrangement puts collateral with a third party.

Borrower documents go privately to the committee at least three business days before first funding. A member calling a borrower in must identify a failed criterion, with a decision within five business days. The committee therefore retains a criterion-based call-in power, while the text leaves funding during a pending objection unspecified. Cases outside the framework still require committee review.

The lending team sets loan-to-value rate cards, shared monthly with the committee alongside book reporting. Loan-to-value measures the amount lent relative to collateral value. A missed margin call, default or changed standing stops new lending to that counterparty and triggers escalation within 48 hours.

The permitted collateral includes BTC, ETH and other specified assets. USDe, sUSDe, ENA, USDtb and borrowers’ own assets are excluded; Ethereum-based XAUT is conditional on custody, liquidation venues and a weekend liquidation test.

The framework preserves five existing approvals. Its public text sets no numerical aggregate lending cap or per-borrower concentration ceiling.

Ethena’s institutional-lending documentation places aggregate exposure limits under governance and committee review, without publishing a numerical ceiling.

The earlier partner-by-partner approach is visible in the March 10 Maple and Anchorage proposal. It said additional offchain partners would need new proposals to the Risk Committee. LlamaRisk, Kairos Research and Blockworks Advisory subsequently posted support for the reviewed agreements.

Those reviews already kept contractual terms confidential. The October development concerns approval authority; confidentiality predates it.