Continuing to deepen its ties to traditional finance, Athena announces a deal with asset manager Janus Henderson that includes a strategic investment in the protocol’s governance token.
Under the agreement, Athena will allocate and help distribute Janus Henderson’s collateralized loan obligation (CLO) tokenized funds, Protocol said in a Tuesday X post.
Meanwhile, Janus Henderson, with $480 billion in assets under management, made a strategic investment in Athena’s ENA token and plans to use USDe, Athena’s yield-bearing synthetic dollar, as part of its fiscal cash management strategy, according to a Thursday announcement.
The companies are also exploring ways to offer USDe to Janus Henderson clients through exchange-traded investment products.
ENA jumped 5% after the announcement before paring gains. It is down 8% in the last 24 hours as the braoder crypto markets fell
“We’re really excited about the opportunity here,” Nick Cherney, chief innovation officer at Janus Henderson Investors, told Coindesk in a message. “We believe very strongly that innovation in blockchain is led by the defi community and that we need to continue to create partnerships with leading founders and protocols.”
The deal fits into the trend of traditional finance firms increasingly embracing and backing decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. Earlier this year, BlackRock (BLK) expanded its tokenized money market fund through a partnership with Uniswap and also invested an undisclosed amount in the decentralized exchange’s UNI token, while Apollo Global Management (APO) struck a deal with lending protocol Morpho to bring tokenized private credit assets on-chain and invest in the protocol’s governance token.
Last week, Coinbase Ventures revealed its first investment in Athena and announced a partnership that will bring Athena products to Coinbase’s more than 100 million users. Separately, Athena expanded its relationship with crypto bank Anchorage Digital to support institutional lending activity through Anchorage’s Atlas security management platform.
Athena has grown into one of the largest decentralized finance protocols by offering returns through its USDe token, which combines stablecoin demand with derivative-based hedging strategies. After reaching around $15 billion in assets during last year’s market rally, the protocol currently manages around $5 billion as crypto markets continue to recover from an extended slump.
“Ethena has proven that it is already possible to innovate in the stablecoin arena, and we continue to see huge opportunities in their business,” added Janus Henderson’s Cherney.
