Ethena Labs: Improving Potential Airdrop Eligibility Through Shards

How to Earn Shards With Ethena Labs Shard Campaign

Users can earn Shards by buying, locking, and staking USDe, along with inviting people to use Ethena. These tasks have no pool limits, although users should still monitor partner tasks to see if they are able to earn extra Shards by completing them. 

Key Takeaways

• Ethena Labs is a synthetic dollar protocol with the aim to revolutionize DeFi through a censorship-resistant approach.

• The USDe token is the project’s Ethereum-based stablecoin which acts as a synthetic dollar that achieves stability through shorting ETH. 

• Investors such as Dragonfly, Binance Labs, Bybit, and more have participated in a fundraising round that successfully raised $14 Million.

Ethena Labs is a synthetic dollar protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain that focuses on providing a crypto-native yield-bearing stablecoin not reliant on traditional banking system infrastructure. 

The project’s Ethereum-based stablecoin, USDe, is positioned as a synthetic dollar rather than a stablecoin and is designed to achieve stability by hedging price exposure through shorting ETH using perpetual swaps. Ethena Labs also refers to USDe as the project’s ‘internet bond’ product, which offers a dollar-denominated savings instrument with the benefits of DeFi. 

Founded in 2023, Ethena Labs has attracted attention from notable investors such as Dragonfly, OKX Ventures, Bybit, Deribit, and others who participated in the first seed round and raised $6.5 million. A recent fundraising round successfully raised an additional $14 million with investors including Brevan Howard Digital, Galaxy Digital, and Hashed, bringing the project’s total raised to $20.5 million and valuation to $300 million. 

September 2, 2024 marked the end of Ethena Lab’s Airdrop Season 2 which saw the supply of USDe grow from 1.3 billion to just under 3 billion. Users were immediately able to view their token allocation and claim their ENA tokens on the week of September 30. Do note that the claim period was open for only 30 days and has since closed, leaving any unclaimed ENA to be reallocated to other users.

The project immediately began Season 3 which will run for six months and conclude on March 23, 2025. Users can now participate by carrying out certain tasks such as holding sENA. On top of that, any users who participated in Season 1 or Season 2 will receive 10% boosted rewards and continue earning points in Season 3. 

Step 1: Connect Wallet and Buy USDe

Follow steps 1 and 2 from the guide above. Buying USDe can be an optional step, depending on which tasks you plan to do. Take the time to look through the list of tasks and determine what assets you need. 

Step 2: Get ENA

In Season 3, Ethena is giving higher rewards for actions with ENA as shown below. For example, holding sENA will give you 40x Rewards while staking and holding sUSDe only gives you 2x Rewards. 

In this guide, we will be getting our ENA by swapping on https://swap.defillama.com. First, Connect your wallet.

We will be swapping USDT for ENA on the Ethereum chain. After inputting the amount, Approve the token and confirm the Swap in your wallet. 

We recommend that you approve transactions each time instead of approve infinite as this helps to minimize the risk of malicious actors accessing your account through the protocol in the future. 

Step 3: Earn Rewards

Go to https://app.ethena.fi/join where you can find a clearly defined list of how to earn rewards on Ethena. Clicking on each task will also redirect you to the specific page. 

In this guide, we will show how to Stake ENA on Ethena and Hold sENA on Pendle as examples. We recommend that you go through each possible way to earn rewards and decide which works best for you. 

Step 3A: Hold sENA

First, click the dropdown for Ethena and select Stake for the Hold sENA task. 

On the staking page, input the amount of ENA to Stake then approve and confirm the transaction in your wallet.

Step 3B: Hold sENA on Pendle

Select Zap In for the first task in the Pendle dropdown menu. 

To earn the Ethena rewards, you need to hold sENA on YT or LP on Pendle. However, do take note that YT sENA means that your sENA deposit will have 0 value at maturity in exchange for earning a much higher amount of points.

We will proceed with LP sENA as this provides both points and yield. 

On the page, input the amount of sENA you want to Zap In. Approve sENA in your wallet then proceed to Zap In and confirm the transaction.

Conclusion

Ethena Labs is gearing up to introduce a new financial experience on the Ethereum blockchain through their synthetic dollar protocol. They intend to provide an alternative to traditional stablecoins through USDe and various financial services through stability and yield generation. 

Airdrops are highly speculative and as mentioned above, following the above steps is no guarantee of an Ethena Labs airdrop. Finally, note that this article is not meant to serve as financial or investment advice, and users should do their own research before depositing funds and interacting with any crypto protocol.