Janus Henderson Takes Strategic ENA Position and Eyes Regulated Investment Products Tied to Ethena

Janus Henderson, a $480 billion asset manager, made a strategic investment in Ethena’s governance token ENA and plans to use USDe, Ethena’s yield-bearing synthetic dollar, as part of its treasury cash management strategy, according to a Tuesday announcement.

Under the agreement, the two firms will also explore offering USDe to Janus Henderson clients through exchange-traded investment products. In the other direction, Ethena will allocate and help distribute Janus Henderson’s tokenized funds of collateralized loan obligations, adding a new category of real-world asset to the protocol’s ecosystem. Ethena disclosed the partnership in a Tuesday X post.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

“We are really excited about the possibility here,” Nick Cherney, head of innovation at Janus Henderson Investors, told CoinDesk. “We believe very deeply that innovation in blockchain is being led by the DeFi community, and that we need to continue to forge partnerships with leading founders and protocols.” He added that Ethena has proven it is possible to innovate in the stablecoin arena even in current conditions.

The deal fits a broadening trend of traditional asset managers taking direct positions in DeFi governance tokens rather than allocating only through fund structures. Earlier this year, BlackRock expanded its tokenized money market fund through a Uniswap partnership and invested in the UNI token, while Apollo Global Management struck a deal with lending protocol Morpho and took a position in its governance token.

Last week, Coinbase Ventures disclosed its first Ethena investment and a partnership to bring Ethena products to Coinbase’s more than 100 million users. Ethena also expanded its relationship with Anchorage Digital to support institutional lending through the bank’s Atlas collateral platform.

Ethena has grown into one of the largest DeFi protocols by offering yield through USDe, which combines stablecoin demand with derivatives-based hedging. After reaching roughly $15 billion in assets during last year’s rally, the protocol currently manages about $5 billion as markets recover from a prolonged downturn. ENA jumped 5% immediately after the announcement before paring gains, and was down 8% over the prior 24 hours as broader crypto markets slid.

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