World Liberty Financial, a DeFi platform backed by President-elect Donald Trump, has announced a strategic collaboration with Ethena Labs. The partnership, announced Wednesday, aims to integrate the sUSDe token — a yield-bearing version of Ethena’s USDe — into World Liberty Financial’s protocol, initially as a collateral asset on its Aave instance.
Ethena has entered into a strategic partnership with @worldlibertyfi
A governance proposal has been submitted to add sUSDe to WLFI's upcoming Aave instance as a core collateral asset pic.twitter.com/jgjd8QGWDS
— Ethena Labs (@ethena_labs) December 18, 2024
According to a statement, the initial goal is to explore the potential of sUSDe as the first new collateral asset on the World Liberty Financial protocol, which utilizes the Aave V3 infrastructure. This integration aims to benefit the platform by attracting higher total value locked (TVL) and new users, leveraging the popularity of sUSDe in existing markets.
According to the companies, “should sUSDe be approved as collateral, the integration will increase the liquidity of stablecoins on the protocol, driven by the popularity of sUSDe as collateral for borrowing against stablecoins such as USDC and USDT.” In less than a month since its introduction on exchanges such as Aave Core and Lido, the token has reached approximately $1,2 billion in assets supplied.
World Liberty Financial’s governance will decide on the implementation proposal this week. Should it not be approved, both parties said they will continue to seek other ways to collaborate.
Furthermore, the partnership comes at a time when World Liberty Financial is looking to increase its relevance in the decentralized finance market. In November, TRON founder Justin Sun invested $30 million in the platform, becoming the largest individual holder of WLFI tokens. The capital was used to purchase assets such as ETH, LINK, and AAVE.
Zak Folkman, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, said: “Collaborating with Ethena Labs brings us closer to our goal of democratizing access to better, more affordable financial tools for users around the world.”
This partnership also marks a significant step in expanding the utility of sUSDe, which is already the third-largest stablecoin by market cap at $6,1 billion. Ethena Labs is further strengthening its position by offering incentives to users who use sUSDe as collateral on the new Aave instance on World Liberty Financial.