The Ethena Foundation has published a package of four changes aimed at two long-running questions around the project: monthly selling pressure from early backers, and who ultimately captures the economic value the protocol produces.
First, the Foundation completed over-the-counter purchases of remaining locked ENA from a group of large seed investors.
The buyers targeted holders originally allocated more than 0.25% of total supply who had sold any ENA after the market peak on 10 October 2025.
Investors who had not sold during that window were offered a repurchase at their original cost with no discount; none accepted.
One wallet among those who had sold also declined, citing conviction in the project.
After the transactions, the Foundation said those who had been selling no longer hold unvested tokens that could later hit the market.Second, the Foundation and lead investors agreed to bring the remaining original investor vesting to an early close.
From 5 October 2026, no investor tokens will stay locked, ending the monthly unlock calendar that had weighed on sentiment.
Team allocations keep their original lock and vesting terms.
After the change, about 12% of supply remains locked and unvested, and that remainder sits with the team, ecosystem, and Foundation.
A large related holder, StablecoinX, continues to hold roughly 20% of supply under a separate lockup disclosed in its SEC filings.
Third, Ethena Labs and the Foundation reached an agreement in principle on a Master Framework Agreement.
Under the contemplated terms, material protocol intellectual property would be assigned or exclusively licensed to the Foundation and its ecosystem rather than to Labs equity holders.
Economic upside, residual profit, and any future sale of the underlying business would also accrue to the Foundation and token-governed ecosystem. Labs equity holders would receive no residual cash flow from the protocol.
The Foundation stressed that Labs shareholders have never taken protocol revenue through dividends or similar distributions.
The full agreement is expected in October 2026.
Fourth, a governance proposal is live to implement a fee-switch schedule already reviewed by the Ethena Risk Committee.
The share of protocol revenue routed toward ENA buybacks would rise as circulating USDe supply hits successive milestones, with the design described as supporting a return toward prior scale while still funding expansion.
Once the first milestone is reached, 95% of net revenue paid to the Foundation from three core lines—USDe savings, white-label stablecoins, and Ethena [X], slated to launch shortly—would go to programmatic ENA purchases, with 5% reserved for growth.
Buybacks would be tracked on the protocol’s transparency dashboard.
Ethena also said it has filed under the Blockworks Token Transparency Framework, an open disclosure standard covering structure, supply, vesting, insider allocations, and value retention. Taken together, the Foundation framed the package as closing the investor unlock calendar, buying out recent sellers, placing protocol economics in a public framework for token holders, and putting revenue-backed buybacks to a vote.