Key takeaways
What is the projection for stock investors?
Ethena founder Guy Young said perpetual shares could unlock a market opportunity more than 30 times that of cryptocurrencies.
Which projects will benefit from the boom?
Perps DEXs like Hyperliquid and delta neutral players like Ethena could benefit first.
Crypto speculation has reached fever pitch. On-chain perpetuals, leveraged derivatives that you can hold forever, provided you pay funding rates, are now being rolled out for stocks.
According to Guy Young, founder of Ethena (ENA), the stock investor trend could offer huge upside potential. He note,
“Crypto has built 1x $200B+ company and 4x $10-100B companies with perpetual shares on a $4 trillion asset class. The shares alone are >30x the size.”
Here he was referring to major crypto exchanges offering perpetuals like the Binance (BNB) exchange.
Other companies, like Ethena Synthetic USDe, which leverage the yield of delta-neutral strategies of perpetual funding rates, have also benefited from this trend.
Young added,
“In my opinion, the upside potential of this product is greater than Robinhood’s current market cap.”
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Are stock investors the next catalyst?
Young’s recognition of this opportunity suggests they may be preparing to act if the market matures.
Jose Macedo, co-founder of analytics company Delphi Research, echoes a similar position and added,
“Equity investors are expanding Ethena’s TAM yield from the $3 trillion crypto market to $120 trillion in the global equity market. This is not taken into account.”
Retail player Robinhood has a market capitalization of $129 billion. For Young, however, stock investors could create companies worth much more than that figure.
For perspective, Ethena’s USDe is now the third largest stablecoin by market cap ($10 billion) due to traditional cryptocurrencies. The firm buys a spot and opens a corresponding short position in futures (perps) to pocket the price difference or yield that supports USDe.
Perp DEX boom adds momentum
Crypto is only a $4 trillion market. Now, imagine expanding into a $120 trillion market with a similar delta-neutral strategy?
This is the likely bet Young could be lookespecially after improving regulatory clarity and liquidity.
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Meanwhile, the overall crypto criminal space is booming. In October alone, DEXs perp trailer 1.2 trillion dollars in volume. This is almost double the $739 billion recorded in September, underscoring the massive interest in speculation.
Source: DeFiLlama
Will Ethena exploit the broader growth of criminals and boost The value of ENA remains to be seen.
