USDe vs USDT
Ethena USDe (USDe) and Tether (USDT) are both dollar stablecoins, but they are built very differently. Here is how they compare on live data and on what actually matters for safety.
| Ethena USDe (USDe) | Tether (USDT) | |
|---|---|---|
| Issuer | Ethena Labs | Tether |
| Type | Synthetic dollar | Fiat-backed |
| Backing | Crypto collateral hedged with short perpetual futures, plus a reserve fund | Reserves held by Tether, mostly short-term US Treasury bills |
| Launched | February 2024 | October 2014 |
| Market cap | $4.96B | $184.17B |
| Price | $0.9997 | $0.9999 |
| Distance from $1 | -0.03% | -0.01% |
| Chains | 31 | 130 |
| Worst recorded depeg | $0.6500 (Oct 2025) | $0.9250 (Oct 2018) |
| Lost to inflation | −7% | −29% |
| Regulation | Not a regulated payment stablecoin | Not authorized under the EU's MiCA; a separate US token (USA₮) is issued under the GENIUS Act |
The key difference
USDT is backed by reserves held by a company — mostly Treasury bills — and can be redeemed for dollars by verified customers. USDe is a synthetic dollar: crypto collateral hedged with short futures, whose staked version pays a variable yield that comes from derivatives markets. USDe's risks are exchange, custody and funding-rate risks rather than banking and reserve-transparency risks.
Bottom line
Neither is risk-free. The better choice depends on which risk you would rather carry — issuer and reserve risk, smart-contract and collateral risk, or derivatives risk — and both still lose value to dollar inflation. This comparison is informational, not financial advice.
Stablecoins copy the dollar — inflation included. Unstablecoins take the opposite bet: no peg, a fixed or shrinking supply and volatility on the label. See them in the live unstablecoin rankings.
Market data: DefiLlama (hourly). Inflation: US CPI-U from FRED. This page is informational and not financial advice.