Ethena Foundation proposes ENA buyback fee switch and token changes

Ethena Foundation proposed four ecosystem changes for the protocol behind USDe. The changes include buying out certain early investors. They include ending monthly investor unlocks. They include assigning protocol value to Ethena Foundation. They include a fee switch for ENA token buybacks. The foundation completed over-the-counter purchases during the past two weeks. The purchases covered all locked tokens from certain major seed investors who had sold ENA during the past nine months. The foundation considered investors originally allocated more than 0.25% of ENA's total supply. It separated investors who had sold at least one token since the market peaked on Oct. 10, 2025, from investors who had sold no tokens during that period. Investors who had not sold could sell their locked tokens at the original purchase price without a discount. None accepted that offer, Ethena said. The foundation bought all unvested tokens from investors who had sold. One wallet declined the offer. The selling investors no longer hold unvested tokens that could be sold in the future, the foundation said. The foundation did not disclose the investors. It did not disclose the number of tokens bought. It did not disclose the transaction value. Ethena's early investors include Dragonfly Capital, OKX Ventures, Arthur Hayes' Maelstrom, Nic Carter's Castle Island Ventures, Franklin Templeton, and Galaxy Digital. The foundation and lead investors agreed to release all remaining original investor tokens at once beginning Oct. 5. The parties will not continue monthly unlocks. Team tokens will remain locked under their original vesting schedules. About 12% of ENA supply will remain locked and unvested after the changes. Those tokens will consist only of team, ecosystem, and foundation holdings. StablecoinX will remain subject to a separate lockup schedule. The publicly filed token purchase agreement outlines that schedule. StablecoinX holds around 20% of total ENA supply. The foundation and Ethena Labs reached an agreement in principle on a Master Framework Agreement. The agreement covers ownership of the protocol and the value it generates. The proposed framework would assign or exclusively license substantially all material Ethena protocol intellectual property to Ethena Foundation and its ecosystem. The framework would not assign that intellectual property to Ethena Labs equity holders. Economic benefits from the protocol would also go to the foundation and ecosystem. Those benefits include proceeds from any future sale of the underlying business. Ethena said the framework formalizes arrangements that have existed since the foundation was created. The foundation expects to publish the framework agreement in October. The foundation opened a governance vote on the fee switch proposal. The proposal would direct an increasing share of protocol revenue to ENA buybacks as USDe supply reaches specified milestones. Once USDe supply reaches the first milestone, 95% of net revenue paid to Ethena Foundation across its three core business lines would fund ENA buybacks. The remaining 5% would fund growth. The three businesses are USDe savings, Ethena's white-label stablecoins, and Ethena X. Ethena X is scheduled to launch next week.