Ethena price slips after BitMex founder Arthur Hayes moves tokens

Ethena erased some of its gains on Friday, December 12, after on-chain data showed Arthur Hayes selling.

Ethena (ENA) token fell to $1.10 from its intraday high of $1.2240. It is down more than 16% from its high this month.

Nansen’s data shows that BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Hayes moved 7 million tokens worth $8.47 million to Binance. Moving a cryptocurrency from a personal custody wallet is usually a sign that a crypto investor is selling.

According to Arkham, Hayes currently owns 7.19 million ENA tokens, worth over $8.5 million. Other portfolio holdings include Ethereum (ETH), Wilder World, Pendle (PENDLE) and Ethena Staked USDe.

Hayes’ sale comes just days after Donald Trump’s World Liberty Finance purchased 741,687 ENA tokens worth $823,000. Ethena has now proposed a deeper collaboration with WLFI; This is a move that could see sUSDe integrated into the upcoming DeFi platform.

The total value locked in Ethena’s ecosystem in the form of USDe stablecoin has surpassed $6 billion for the first time. This growth has made it the third-largest stablecoin in the crypto industry, after Tether and USD Coin.

USDe’s growth is mostly due to its strong yield. According to the website, USDe’s stablecoin yield is 12%, much higher than what US government bonds and most dividend ETFs offer.

Meanwhile, Polymarket users believe that the USDe stablecoin will not lose its $1 peg this year. According to the site, there is a chance the coin will fall below 90 cents. When analysts compared it to Terra, there was almost a 20% chance it would lose its peg in May.

Ethena also recently launched USDtb, a new stablecoin backed by asset manager BlackRock with over $11.5 trillion in assets.

Technicals predict further Ethena price gains ENA price chart | Source: crypto.news

The daily chart shows that the ENA price dropped to $0.1951 in September and is up 445% to the current $1.0825. The cryptocurrency broke above the 50-day moving average and the psychological level of $1.00.

There are signs of a cup-and-handle formation forming with a top at $1.5197. Therefore, a move above this month’s high of $1.3275 will increase the chances of the coin rising to $1.5197, which is about 42% above the current level.