🚨 Ethena Grants Trading Team Authority to Approve Borrowers for USDe Collateral Ethena announced a new institutional lending framework on October 29, enabling its trading team to independently approve qualified borrower partners without requiring separate votes from the Risk Committee. Under the new guidelines, borrowers must meet the following criteria: - Operate in a licensed or registered jurisdiction, and not be on the FATF blacklist or greylist. - Not be subject to sanctions, bankruptcy, or serious violations related to fraud or customer assets. - Have a full repayment obligation or be guaranteed by a parent company. - Collateral must be held in segregation at an approved custodian. - Provide daily collateral reporting for verification by Ethena. Accepted collateral assets include BTC, ETH, stETH, SOL, XRP, USDC, USDT, and other specified assets. USDe, sUSDe, ENA, USDtb, and assets issued by the borrower themselves are explicitly excluded. The Risk Committee retains oversight authority. Borrower profiles must be submitted at least three business days in advance, and committee members may request a review if they determine a partner fails to meet criteria. Cases outside the new framework still require full committee approval. The lending team is also authorized to set loan-to-value (LTV) ratios and must submit monthly lending portfolio reports. If a borrower fails to meet additional collateral requirements, breaches obligations, or undergoes a change in legal status, new lending activity will be suspended and escalated to the committee within 48 hours. Notably, the new framework does not specify total outstanding loan limits or maximum concentration thresholds per borrower. CryptoSlate also reported that dashboard data as of November 1 did not yet reflect complete outstanding loan balances or current collateral ratios. This change marks a shift in Ethena’s risk management approach—from individual counterparty approvals to empowering the trading team to screen borrowers against predefined criteria.