Ethena Pay Rolls Out Earn+ With Up to 12% Target Rewards

Ethena Pay has begun rolling out Earn+, an optional vault advertising up to 12% annual rewards on dollar balances, initially for Pro and VIP users. The app’s announcement says access will expand to all its users in the coming days.

The new feature moves money out of the main payment balance into an external Upshift vault, with Steakhouse Financial running a leveraged $USDe strategy on Aave. According to Ethena Pay’s launch document, the vault targets roughly 11 times leverage on Aave v4 on Avalanche, packaging repeated borrowing and reinvestment into a one-tap deposit.

That offers users access to a higher target return than the app’s existing tiered rewards of up to 6%, but leaves them exposed to the vault’s losses. Ethena Pay’s disclosures say it provides the interface rather than guaranteeing the assets, and users could lose some or all of their allocation.

Borrowing Behind the One-Tap Deposit

The vault supplies $USDe as collateral, borrows $USDT, uses the borrowed tokens to acquire more $USDe and repeats the process. Steakhouse confirmed that sequence in its own announcement. The strategy increases exposure to $USDe rewards while incurring $USDT borrowing costs; its return depends on the income covering those costs.

The simplified interface does not remove liquidation risk. Aave’s documentation explains that a position becomes eligible for liquidation when its collateral no longer sufficiently covers its debt. Liquidators repay debt and take collateral plus a bonus, reducing the collateral remaining in the position. Ethena Pay says the strategy’s $USDe oracle is pegged to $USDT, rather than describing a market-price oracle that tracks every $USDe price move.

The 12% figure is a target, not a guaranteed payout. The FAQ says the displayed rate can fall and that Earn+ balances do not also receive the main account’s Daily Boost.

For comparison, yield-data provider vaults.fyi reported a 4.93% seven-day average APY for Ethena Staked $USDe on Ethereum as of Oct. 26. That is a standalone staking benchmark, not the same leveraged borrowing strategy offered through Earn+.

Ethena Pay launched in September with a tiered rate of up to 6%. Its current FAQ describes that main-balance rate as the underlying $USDe rate plus a discretionary promotional boost, subject to balance caps and a qualifying monthly card transaction. Earn+ instead requires users to opt into the external vault and accept its risk disclosures.

No Lockup, but Withdrawals Are Processed

Ethena Pay says Earn+ has no lockup and charges no fee to add or withdraw money. Its FAQ says withdrawals are processed within 24 hours into the main USD account, while also warning that processing can take longer than usual. The allocation is not an insured bank deposit.

The vault starts with a combined capacity limit of $4.5 million. Individual allocations are capped at $50,000 for Pro and $200,000 for VIP, with a $20,000 limit specified for Standard users as access expands.