Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN), said it had backed Athena (ENA), buying the protocol’s token on the open market as the two firms prepare to launch a new onchain savings product for the exchange’s more than 100 million users.
Athena announced on Tuesday that it was partnering with Coinbase to expand onchain financing and savings offerings, with the first initiative scheduled to launch next week.
“Excited to partner with Coinbase for the first time to support their dollar savings products,” said Athena founder Guy Young in a post on X. “The upcoming integration next week will be the first time Athena products are available to their 100m+ user base.”
As part of the deal, Coinbase said it is already Athena’s primary custodian, wallet provider and perpetual venue, while the protocol’s USDe dividend token will be distributed on the base network and the “wider [Coinbase] ecosystem.”
ENA, Athena’s governance token, surged 20% on the news before paring gains. The token rose 3% over the past 24 hours despite the broader crypto market pullback.
The investment marks a notable endorsement from Coinbase as Athena looks to expand beyond crypto-native users. Athena emerged as one of crypto’s fastest-growing protocols, combining stablecoin demand with derivative-based financing strategies to provide returns to investors in a token form. Assets on the protocol grew to $15 billion at the peak of the October market, but have since fallen to $5.3 billion as demand and yields faded amid the crypto downturn.
The announcement comes as lawmakers continue to debate the CLARITY Act, a market structure bill that could provide a clearer regulatory framework for crypto products in the United States. Young said the legislation could create additional tailwinds for onchain native assets such as USDe, Athena’s synthetic dollar token.
Leveraging Coinbase’s user base
Although neither company revealed details about the upcoming product, investors speculated that the partnership could significantly expand Athena’s distribution.
Access to Coinbase’s user base could provide a new source of capital as the protocol seeks to expand beyond decentralized finance to mainstream crypto brokerage platforms.
Yan Liberman, managing partner at Delphi Ventures, an investor in Athena, said the deal could potentially connect Coinbase’s roughly $19 billion USDC stablecoin ecosystem with Athena’s dividend-generating infrastructure.
“If sUSDe provides clear baseline USDC rates, Coinbase can offer better USDC lending yield,” Liberman wrote on X. “Ethena gets deeper and cheaper funding than native DeFi alone.”
Expansion into institutional credit market with Anchorage
Athena is also pushing deeper into institutional markets.
On Tuesday, protocol and crypto bank Anchorage Digital said it had expanded its partnership with Athena to support institutional lending.
Under the arrangement, Anchorage will manage collateral for Athena’s loan investments through its Atlas platform, allowing borrowers to hold assets in custody rather than moving them on-chain.
The setup aims to make crypto-native lending more accessible to institutions that require regulated custody and compliance controls.
“Institutions want access to crypto-native capital, but not at the expense of custody, control or operational rigor,” Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley said in a statement.
The announcement is based on an existing relationship between the companies. Anchorage Digital Bank already serves as the US issuer of Athena’s USDtb stablecoin.
