Users deposit ETH or LSTs on Ethena and can mint a USDe synthetic stablecoin in return. USDe generates yield from the staked Ethereum as well as the funding & basis spread from perpetual and futures' markets. A portion of this yield is then distributed to USDe stakers (expense).

Ethena is a stablecoin issuer and asset management protocol built on Ethereum. Ethena was founded by Guy Young and launched in 2024.

ENA tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total yield generated (revenue). Ethena's investors include Dragonfly, Franklin Templeton, Brevan Howard Digital, etc.

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Ethena

# Ethena Cost of revenue Methodology

## 1. Overview

Ethena's cost of revenue represents the daily operational expenses associated with running the Ethena USDe stablecoin protocol, specifically costs related to staking reward distributions and partner payouts. This metric captures three main expense categories: rewards distributed to stakers through the staking rewards distributor contract, payments to partners in USDC and USDT, and direct Ethena USDe payouts from the protocol treasury. The calculation aggregates token transfer amounts on a daily basis and converts them to USD values to provide a comprehensive view of protocol operating expenses.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation relies on the following raw data sources:

- **Blockchain events**: Parsed Ethereum ERC-20 `Transfer` events from transaction logs, specifically tracking Ethena USDe, USDC, and USDT token movements
- **Transaction data**: Ethereum transaction records containing transfer events to and from specific Ethena protocol addresses
- **External data**: End-of-day token price feeds for USD conversion and token metadata for decimal precision correction
- **Protocol addresses**: Hardcoded smart contract addresses for the staking rewards distributor, partner payout multisigs, and Ethena USDe payout multisig

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Staking rewards transfers
- **Purpose**: Captures Ethena USDe tokens transferred to the staking rewards distributor contract as operational costs
- **Logic**: Identifies all `Transfer` events where Ethena USDe tokens (address `0x4c9edd5852cd905f086c759e8383e09bff1e68b3`) are sent to the staking rewards distributor contract (`0xf2fa332bd83149c66b09b45670bce64746c6b439`). These transfers represent costs associated with distributing staking rewards to Ethena USDe holders. Each transfer is classified under the "Interest" business line and tagged with version "staking reward distributor"
- **Key fields**: Block timestamp for daily aggregation, transaction hash and log index for uniqueness, token address for Ethena USDe identification, and transfer `value` as the cost amount

### Component B: Partner payout transfers  
- **Purpose**: Captures USDC and USDT payments to partner addresses as partnership-related costs
- **Logic**: Identifies `Transfer` events where USDC (`0xa0b86991c6218b36c1d19d4a2e9eb0ce3606eb48`) or USDT (`0xdac17f958d2ee523a2206206994597c13d831ec7`) tokens are sent to either of two partner payout multisig addresses (`0xd0ec8cc7414f27ce85f8dece6b4a58225f273311` and `0xf19c433c6b288e487b767595886321f89a3cbf17`). These represent costs for partner compensation and are tagged with version "partner payout"
- **Key fields**: Block timestamp, transaction identifiers, token addresses for USDC/USDT, recipient addresses for partner identification, and transfer `value` for cost amount

### Component C: Ethena USDe payout transfers
- **Purpose**: Captures Ethena USDe tokens distributed from the protocol treasury as direct payout costs  
- **Logic**: Identifies `Transfer` events where Ethena USDe tokens are sent from the Ethena USDe payout multisig (`0x71e4f98e8f20c88112489de3dded4489802a3a87`) to any recipient address. These represent direct protocol payouts and operational expenses, tagged with version "Ethena USDe payout"
- **Key fields**: Block timestamp, transaction identifiers, Ethena USDe token address, source address verification, and transfer `value` as cost amount

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All three transfer types are combined using union operations, with each maintaining its distinct version classification while sharing common business line categorization as "Interest" under the stablecoin issuers market sector
- **Currency conversion**: Token amounts are converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds, with proper decimal precision correction applied based on each token's decimal configuration (18 decimals for Ethena USDe, 6 decimals for USDC/USDT)
- **Time aggregation**: All transfers are aggregated at the daily level by truncating block timestamps to day boundaries, ensuring consistent daily cost reporting
- **Final calculation**: The metric represents the sum of all USD-converted costs per day across the three categories, with missing days filled with zero values to maintain continuous time series data and filtered based on chain availability requirements

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Expenses paid to third parties to deliver core service output.

EthenaENA

Cost of revenue

Cost of revenue

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown