Update
HyENA: Where Ethena Met HyperLiquid
A new perp dex is turning heads.
What is HyENA? It’s a perpetual trading platform that uses USDe for margin. Ethena built it in partnership with BasedOne.
USDe is the stablecoin from Ethena. This platform will increase the demand for USDe & generate additional revenue from perpetual trading fees as well.
Right now, the platform only has four perp markets.
Still, HyENA posted insane numbers within 24 hours.
- $10M HLPe all filled
- 5k new active users
- $7.8M in open interest
- Became #2 builder by trading volume at $23M USD.
Here’s the most important feature of this perp DEX: it’s built on HyperLiquid infrastructure.
How does that happen? This was made possible by HIP 3, HyperLiquid’s “Builder Deployed Perpetuals” upgrade. It lets anyone launch new perp markets using a permissionless process.
Here’s how it works:
- Every 31 hours, there’s a Dutch auction to determine who gets to deploy the next market
- Participants stake 500k HYPE to join, which filters out trolls
- The winner chooses oracle, margin asset, collateral, funding, liquidation parameters, fee splits, and governance rules
- Builders can earn part of trading fees via builder codes (their version of referrals)
So frontend applications like Phantom & MetaMask have integrated HyperLiquid into the wallets.
This structure is transparent and decentralized. No more guessing why a market is listed on a CEX. If the community wants a market, they can launch it.
Even better, HIP 3 unlocks markets beyond crypto: equities, FX, commodities, structured products, indices, prediction markets, and more.
HyENA is the first major perp exchange to use this new infrastructure.
Why You Might Care
- Providing liquidity to the HyENA Liquidity Provider Vault (HLPe) will give you yield from funding rates, market making, and liquidations. Right now, there’s a 5x Upshift points and 70x Ethena Points as well.
- You can migrate from another exchange without cost using “Position Migrator” in the 7-day window. You’ll receive a rebate around a month after.
- It’ll give you Based Points and HyENA Points. The HyENA will convert to ENA tokens at the end of the six-month points program.
- Usual HyperLiquid positions don’t earn any reward. The positions on hyENA earn USDe rewards. For the first month, they’re offering a 12% APY boost on eligible (long positions open for >1h) USDe margin.
I’m not a huge perp trader. But if you already trade perps, HyENA is worth a look.
Sponsored by Solstice
Solstice Finance: Solana’s Native Stablecoin
Every portfolio needs a stablecoin allocation.
You need it as dry powder for upcoming opportunities, a tool for capital preservation, and a way to grow consistently through yield.
So what are your options?
Enter Solstice Finance, the Solana-native stablecoin project.
- USX is their 100% collateralized USD stablecoin.
- eUSX is the yield-bearing version of USX. You get it by depositing USX into YieldVault.
- SLX is their upcoming protocol token. (You should join their points program to qualify for a potential airdrop.)
Let’s get into more details.
#1. $USX
It’s a stablecoin 100% backed by stable collateral.
The reserves are independently verified by the Accountable, an independent protocol for financial verification. You don’t have to trust anyone blindly — you can monitor the reserves here.
Incentives ensure USX stays pegged to USD. It allows whitelisted users to mint or redeem USX using USDC or USDT. They’re incentivized to maintain the stablecoin peg.
It’s also integrated with 50+ DeFi partners on Solana. You can use it onchain, from payments to DeFi Strategies, as any other stablecoin. With Solstice, you can earn points for a juicy airdrop as well.
#2. eUSX & YieldVault
Solstice also brings institutional-grade yield to retail.
Users can deposit stablecoins into the YieldVault & get eUSX in return. The vault then earns yield using delta-neutral strategies. And the value of eUSX will increase to reflect the yield.
Let’s go into more detail.
What exactly are delta-neutral strategies?
There are financial strategies that can make money regardless of whether markets go up or down.
Examples include simple arbitrage strategies. Imagine $TOKEN is trading on Binance for $100 and for $95 on Uniswap. The arbitrageur can buy from Uniswap and sell on Binance at the same time and pocket the $5 difference.
There are more such strategies.
They allow you to earn yield without exposure to how the price moves.
But we can’t access many of the good delta-neutral strategies. There’s a high barrier to entry.
- Connections with multiple exchanges.
- Ability to monitor markets 24×7 in real-time.
- World-class infrastructure to reliably land transactions at specific prices.
Many strategies aren’t even accessible to retail like us. They’re locked behind huge minimums and institutional barriers.
This is where Solstice comes in.
It’s backed by Deus X Capital, which has $1+ billion AUM across 40+ portfolio companies. The project’s security has been audited by audit firms like Halborn Security, with 100% findings addressed.
Solstice has been successfully executing these strategies since 2022. Now, they’re bringing the institutional-grade strategies to retail users.
In their 25+ months of live trading, they’ve
- made 21.5% returns in 2024.
- Positive returns in 100% of all months.
- In late November, it had a 16.2% APY over the trailing 12 months.
Remember, these Solstice strategies work in all conditions.
In fact, the gains yield increase when crypto markets get chaotic. It had worked through Terra collapse, FTX bankruptcy, and the 2022 crypto winter.
Even if the market gets rekt, Solstice can keep making money.
Solstice’s YieldVault shares that yield to depositors.
Here’s how it works:
- You deposit USDC to YieldVault and get eUSX in return.
- Solstice will take that money and earn yield using delta-neutral strategies.
- The yield will be reflected in the value of the eUSX token.
eUSX can be used across DeFi. So there’s no opportunity cost for using the YieldVault.
And if you want your stablecoin back, you can always redeem eUSX for the underlying stablecoins anytime you want. But for any withdrawals more than $1,000 USDC, there is a 7-day cooldown period.
(The cooldown period is necessary to safely manage the capital for delta-neutral strategies and the USX liquidity stability.)
The institutional grade yield is attractive enough for most people. But they have a bonus reward as well.
#3. Flares & $SLX
Solstice is running a points program called “Flares”.
You can earn flares with your activity and engagement. The more you contribute, the more you stack. Earning those points will qualify you for a juicy $SLX airdrop.
Solstice is setting up to be Solana’s default stablecoin.
- >80% of Solana’s stablecoin supply is USDC & USDT.
- The yield USDC & USDT generates is literally going to Solana competitors like Base chain.
- Solana community needs a stablecoin that’ll direct the stablecoin yields into the Solana ecosystem.
- $USX & $eUSX are best positioned to become the Solana-native stablecoin.
Solstice is tackling a massive opportunity. So the $SLX airdrop could be a good windfall as well.
You can get that airdrop by earning “Flares”, which is pretty simple.
- Use USX for your normal Solana onchain activities.
- Deposit into the YieldVault and earn institutional-grade yield.
- There are DeFi activities listed by the protocol to earn additional points. You can find a list here.
Right now, you can get a fixed yield of 12.9% APY for PT-USX that matures on February 9th. This is a pretty good opportunity.
The protocol has already attracted a core base of Solana users. Within ~two months of launch, it already has >$327 M in total value locked.
On X, Solstice has hinted at something big happening on December 21st. Having flares would probably help.
So you need to rush to accumulate the points.
🚀 DeFi Catalysts
Solana tokens tradable on Coinbase through DEX trading feature app. This will give massive distribution for Solana tokens.
Meteora made a ton of announcements at MetDhabi, including a 10.6M dollar MET buyback.
Superstate introduced Direct Issuance Programs. This enables native onchain stocks, as opposed to the usual wrappers on stocks.
Gondor has started inviting sign-ups to its platform. It allows users to borrow against their Polymarket positions.
Solfare, a Solana wallet, introduced Solfare Shield. It’s a hardware wallet slim enough to fit in your pocket.
Solayer released the mainnet alpha of InfiniSVM for builders. It’s a hardware-accelerated SVM L1 with >330k tps, sub-40 ms latency, & 400ms finality.
Octra is an FHE network providing universal encrypted compute. They’ll be doing a public sale of their token between December 18-25.
Tempo launched its testnet. It’s a blockchain built by Stripe that’ll focus on the payments niche.
Fluid introduced Venus X, an upcoming money market and DEX on BNB Chain. It’s built in partnership with Venus.
📰 Industry News
Fed lowered interest rate by 25 bps to 3.75%. Rate reduction is usually bullish for risk assets like crypto.
DTC received a No‑Action Letter from the SEC to tokenize certain DTC‑custodied assets. This is a subsidiary company of DTCC, the US financial market infrastructure that handles trillions in securities transactions.
BlackRock has filed for a staked ETH ETF. Theoretically, this instrument should be more attractive than a vanilla ETH ETF.
Do Kwon, the founder of Terra Luna, was sentenced to 15 years. It was more than what prosecutors requested.
Strive, Vivek Ramaswamy’s firm, is looking to raise $500 million to purchase more Bitcoin.
🐦⬛ X Hits
- The stablecoin stack
- Learning discipline in trading.
- 20 crypto predictions for 2026.
- A multi-trillion ETH valuation framework.
- The anatomy of a crypto neobank.
😂 Meme
Until next time,
Edgy
Today’s email was written by Edgy and Yayya.
DISCLAIMER: I’m NOT a financial advisor. This content is for education and information purposes only. Crypto and DeFi are risky and speculative. Please do your research before investing.
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