6 months ago
Arthur Hayes is the influencer's influencer. At crypto conferences, his parties are the hottest summons astatine the show, with mile-long lines. He's besides a trendsetter, and leads narratives connected caller segments of the crypto marketplace similar Bitcoin Ordinals.
Hayes' household office, Maelstrom, has made dozens of high-profile investments <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/04/07/former-bitmex-ceo-arthur-hayes-calls-his-maelstrom-capital-a-very-patient-fund" target="_blank">since opening its doors past year.</a> But this year, the concern that truly caught the market's attraction was Ethena, besides known by its ticker, USDe.
<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tv/unchained/ethenas-usde-grew-to-dollar2-billion-in-7-weeks-is-it-safe" target="_blank">USDe isn't a stablecoin</a>. It's antithetic from USDC oregon USDT, the 2 leaders, arsenic it <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/04/11/ethena-labs-divides-opinion-as-high-yield-stirs-memories-of-terra" target="_blank">keeps its $1 value</a> by utilizing staked Ether for backing and offsetting terms changes with abbreviated positions connected ETH, portion earning output from staking rewards and marketplace fees.
This illustration is portion of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2024 package. For each of this year's nominees, click here.
And it's been well-received by the market. <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoin/ethena-usde" target="_blank">DeFiLlama data</a> shows that USDe's marketplace headdress started the twelvemonth astatine conscionable implicit $100 million, and present stands astatine much than $5.25 billion.
Hayes’ Take
USDe is besides a near-perfect encapsulation of Hayes' fiat-skeptic worldview — which helium lays retired connected his often-viral <a href="https://cryptohayes.medium.com/" target="_blank">Medium blog</a> — due to the fact that it provides a synthetic dollar alternate that's wholly autarkic of the accepted banking system.
Hayes argues that decentralized finance, including integer assets specified arsenic USDe, is captious to resisting the perpetual erosion of worth inherent successful fiat systems. And Hayes boldly enactment his wealth wherever his rima was successful the <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/10/28/arthur-hayes-maelstrom-hedges-us-election-uncertainty-with-staked-usde-holds-large-btc-eth-bullish-bets" target="_blank">days earlier the U.S. election</a> by doubling down connected USDe. This condemnation possibly wasn't necessary, arsenic Donald Trump won the predetermination and <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2024/12/04/bitcoin-hits-major-milestone-of-100-k-nears-2-trillion-market-value" target="_blank">bitcoin rocketed to $100K.</a>
And truthful it goes for Hayes.
English (US) 