Ethena, a team that once pushed the scale of arbitrage configuration in cryptocurrency perpetual contract basis trading to a historical peak of over $8 billion, has now extended the same mature strategy of "holding spot, selling perpetuals, and earning funding rates" into a brand new battlefield—stock perpetual contracts. Since March of this year, the volume of this previously almost non-existent market has surged, growing from a marginal product into a huge pool close to $6 billion—$6.2 billion, covering about 200 contracts in just a few months. There are even single sources suggesting a theoretical potential space of $4 trillion. The average annualized funding rates for related contracts on Binance and Hyperliquid have remained at approximately 17.5% and 14%, respectively, presenting tempting chips for any institutions skilled in basis trading. As the stock perpetual contracts ballooned and the funding rates became attractive, Ethena announced it would expand the supporting assets of USDe to basis trading based on stock perpetual contracts, applying its models validated in the cryptocurrency market to harvest this emerging arbitrage field. Almost simultaneously, a chart released by CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju showed that the price premium of BTC on Coinbase turned from a long-term negative value to a positive value—this change is interpreted as a signal that US funds are becoming bullish on Bitcoin again, particularly regarding Coinbase, which is seen as the main gateway for compliant funds and institutional buying in the U.S. When the funding rates and scale of stock perpetual contracts surged, Ethena's arbitrage machinery targeted traditional stock assets, and Coinbase's premium quietly turned positive, these three originally independent clues have begun to converge recently, outlining a clear profile of how crypto-native strategies are penetrating the stock market and resonating with the warming risk appetite of U.S. institutions.

From USDe to Stock Perpetuals: Arbitrage Giants Expanding New Collateral Pools

Before these three clues converged, Ethena had already proven its machine efficiency on another front. As the issuer of USDe, it relies on a framework of "holding spot, selling perpetual contracts, and earning returns from funding rates," industrializing the basis trading of cryptocurrency perpetual contracts into a streamlined operation: one end involves users and collateral assets provided by the market, while the other end incorporates systematic spot buying and perpetual short selling, rolling out scale through funding rates and price differentials, with historical arbitrage configuration peaks exceeding $8 billion. This figure itself represents a form of power, indicating that Ethena has already established a significant scale advantage in cryptocurrency perpetual basis trading, allowing it to play dual roles as both "executor" and "amplifier" during funding rate cycles.

Now, Ethena has pushed this mature framework into a new collateral pool. The official announcement stated it would expand the assets supported by USDe from cryptocurrency perpetual contracts to stock perpetual contracts, transplanting the same spot-perpetual arbitrage logic into basis trading targeting stocks, with the aim of tapping into greater funding rate premium spaces. A single source cited in a research briefing estimates that the theoretical potential outstanding size of the stock perpetual contracts market is around $4 trillion—this is not the current volume, but rather a possible upper limit curve, enough to let arbitrage giants like Ethena envision opportunities far beyond cryptocurrency perpetuals. In this new collateral pool, Ethena aims to replicate the arbitrage machine honed in the cryptocurrency perpetual market to a larger scale, thicker funding rate stock derivatives world.

March Surge Tenfold: Stock Perpetual Contracts Become New Profit Battleground

The real turning point emerged in March of this year. What had previously been a few exchanges quietly testing the waters with niche products was pushed to the forefront by funding in just a few months. A single data source cited in a research briefing shows that since March, the outstanding volume of stock perpetual contracts has surged more than tenfold, reaching approximately $6.2 billion by August 11, and currently remains close to the $6 billion range. This is not a "small pond" involving a handful of popular technology stocks, but rather a broad spectrum covering around 200 contracts, rapidly expanding from single-point experiments into a multi-asset, systematically deployable derivatives network.

The influx of funds is due to the "rich" time value here. In the stock perpetual contract market, the average annualized funding rates of related products on Hyperliquid and Binance are approximately 14% and 17.5%, respectively, both of which are considered mid to high levels compared to the traditional stock financing environment and cryptocurrency perpetuals. For those like Ethena, who are accustomed to the "holding spot + selling perpetuals to earn funding rates" strategy, this set of data is almost a clear signal: there is a stable pool of profits being released, there is enough outstanding volume to accommodate institutional sizes, and there is an increasing number of underlying assets available to diversify risk. The result is that stock perpetual contracts are being reshaped into a new profit battleground driven by funding rates, providing a stage for fine-tuned arbitrage and cross-market capital battles.

Crypto-Native Arbitrage Overflowing into the Stock Market: How Funding Rates Reshape Pricing

In cryptocurrency perpetual contracts, funding rates have long ceased to be a strange term, being written into basic textbooks on spot-perpetual arbitrage: holding spot on one side, selling perpetuals to earn the "rent" of basis using time on the other. Now, this mechanism has been directly transplanted into the stock perpetual market—the contracts settle according to funding rates as well, and the basis oscillates between the spot stock price and the perpetual price, with the only change being the underlying asset switching from Bitcoin to stocks like Apple and Nvidia. Since March of this year, the outstanding volume of stock perpetual contracts has exploded more than tenfold, and the current size is close to $6 billion—$6.2 billion, covering about 200 contracts, while the annualized funding rates on Hyperliquid and Binance remain at around 14% and 17.5%, in the face of a theoretical potential size of about $4 trillion, this basis space seems almost intentionally reserved for those skilled in arbitrage.

Ethena is just that kind of arbitrage expert. It achieved a historical arbitrage configuration peak exceeding $8 billion in the cryptocurrency market with the "holding spot, selling perpetuals to earn funding rates" strategy, and now publicly states its intention to expand the same spot-perpetual arbitrage logic directly to stock perpetual contracts, incorporating basis trading based on stock perpetual contracts into the supporting assets of USDe. When participants like Ethena expand positions across assets and markets, the crypto-native yield structure is overlaid onto traditional stock assets: a stock that originally carries only the fundamentals of a company begins to simultaneously provide funding rate income and hedging tools for global capital. The result is that the hedging costs and risk premiums of stocks are no longer determined solely by cash dividends, interest rates, and industry cycles, but also must yield to the levels of perpetual funding rates and the density of basis trading; the pricing method of "crypto-financialization" is quietly infiltrating the valuation and risk structure of traditional assets through these seemingly marginal derivatives.

Coinbase Premium Turns Positive: A Signal of U.S. Institutional Buying Resurgence

At the same time that the funding rates for stock perpetual contracts remain at mid to high levels of around 14% and 17.5%, and the outstanding volume is rapidly expanding, another long-absent old signal lights up again. A chart released by CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju indicates that the price premium of Bitcoin on Coinbase has turned from negative to positive—this means that, relative to other exchanges, buyers on the U.S.-based compliant platform are starting to be willing to "pay a bit more" for goods. For veteran players who are used to reading sentiment through relative price differentials, this is more convincing than any verbal "bullish" statements, serving as a direct piece of evidence for the strengthening of U.S. institutional buying.

The reason this data is placed under the magnifying glass is straightforward: Coinbase has long been seen as the primary channel for U.S. institutions and compliant capital to enter Bitcoin, and its premium relative to other exchanges is not used to estimate specific holding sizes, but rather to judge whether these funds are more inclined to sell at a discount or are willing to buy at a premium at a certain moment. When the premium turns from negative to positive, coupled with high funding rates for stock perpetual contracts and simultaneous increases in trading volume and outstanding volume, two originally independent risk appetite curves from different worlds have recently shown synchronous movements—on one side, global funds chase basis returns in stock perpetuals, while on the other, U.S. institutions return to the role of "raising prices and picking up" Bitcoin on Coinbase. This cross-asset resonance constitutes an important note regarding the overall warming of current market risk appetite.

Two Main Funding Lines Intertwined: Next Step of Crypto Finance Penetrating Traditional Markets

When Ethena applies the peak spot-perpetual basis arbitrage logic it achieved in cryptocurrency perpetuals—exceeding $8 billion—directly into the stock perpetual contracts market, which has seen its outstanding volume expand over tenfold and approach $6 billion—$6.2 billion since March of this year, it is essentially opening a technical channel for crypto-native funds to access traditional stocks; at the same time, BTC's premium on Coinbase has changed from negative to positive, re-emerging as behavior willing to pay higher prices for Bitcoin on the exchange seen as "the entrance for U.S. institutions." These two originally independent funding lines point towards the same conclusion during the same time window: crypto-native strategies and U.S. institutional funds are leveraging risk assets using their familiar tools. Stock perpetual contracts, priced primarily by funding rates, are highly homogeneous with cryptocurrency perpetuals; the average annualized funding rates on Hyperliquid and Binance remain at mid to high levels of about 14% and 17.5%, respectively. This replicable yield curve means that more and more crypto institutions are motivated to include traditional stocks, Bitcoin, and USDe in the same arbitrage and yield pool, utilizing a cross-market funding rate and basis management logic to allocate positions. As these tools penetrate further, the prices of traditional assets will be drawn by the funding rates of perpetual contracts, cross-market capital flows, and the outstanding volume of derivatives, no longer fluctuating solely around corporate profits and macro expectations. How regulators define, penetrate, and constrain this cross-chain, cross-asset leverage will determine whether a future severe fluctuation is merely a "storm in the crypto circle" or will trigger new rounds of resonance amplification and even liquidity squeezes, resulting in systemic risk between crypto and stock perpetuals.

Join our community to discuss and become stronger together!
AiCoin exclusive Hyperliquid benefits: https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/join/AICOIN88
AiCoin exclusive Aster benefits: https://www.asterdex.com/zh-CN/referral/9C50e2
On-chain Telegram community: https://t.me/AiCoinWhaleData
On-chain community: https://www.aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=N6OVMor5g
AiCoin on-chain Twitter: https://x.com/aicoinwhaledata

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。