Standard Chartered initiates Ethena coverage, sees ENA at $2 by 2028

Standard Chartered has started coverage of Ethena’s ENA token with a $2 end-2028 price target. ENA was trading at about $0.26 at press time, putting the target roughly 669% above its current price.

The bank sees Ethena benefiting from growing demand for yield-bearing stablecoins and the expansion of tokenized assets across DeFi and traditional finance.

Standard Chartered has initiated research coverage of Ethena.

They forecast potential USDe growth of ~8x in the next 2 years as the convergence of DeFi and TradFi accelerates.

Unclear why they are so bearish, but worth a read regardless: pic.twitter.com/JlzXqrqc07

— Ethena (@ethena) September 30, 2026

Ethena is currently the fourth-largest stablecoin issuer and the second-largest issuer of yield-bearing stablecoins. Its USDe stablecoin reached $10 billion in market capitalization within nine months of launch, initially generating yield through the crypto basis trade before expanding into real-world assets, DeFi lending, institutional lending, liquid stablecoins and equity and commodity basis trades.

Standard Chartered expects the tokenized-asset market to grow substantially through 2028, giving Ethena more room to scale.

Ethena has also introduced a buyback-and-burn program that directs 95% of net revenue toward ENA purchases and burns. Standard Chartered forecasts USDe’s outstanding supply could reach $40 billion by 2028, which would make the buyback program increasingly meaningful for ENA.

However, the outlook could face risks from slower adoption of yield-bearing stablecoins and weaker RWA growth, the bank noted.

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