EtherFi Launches USDe LRT and Season 4 Points Campaign

EtherFi, the largest liquid restaking protocol, and Ethena, the issuer of the USDe stablecoin, have teamed up on a new USD-denominated liquid restaking token (LRT)

On Sept. 24, EtherFi announced the launch of eUSD, a liquid restaking token for USDe deposits in EigenLayer, the dominant Ethereum restaking protocol.

The move comes after EigenLayer onboarded USDe as the first dollar-denominated token supported as a restakable asset on Sept. 3, allowing users to secure Actively Validated Services (AVSs) on EigenLayer using a stablecoin for the first time.

“eUSD gives optionality for AVS to better manage their economic security through market volatility,” EtherFi said.

Ethena tweeted that eUSD holders will earn points issued by itself, EtherFi, and Veda, with the possibility of earning EigenLayer points as well.

USDe is a yield-bearing stablecoin that derives returns from a combination of ETH staking yields hedged against funding rates on Ether shorts.

EtherFi Season 4

The news coincided with EtherFi announcing that claims for its third airdrop season would become claimable within 24 hours, with users concurrently able to claim Season 2 EIGEN token allocations earned through its products.

EtherFi revealed that users began earning points for its fourth season on Sept. 15, with the season lasting until Feb. 1, 2025.

The protocol’s users will also begin to earn rewards from AVSs secured by assets deposited with EtherFi in the form of LRT2 tokens. Users can unwrap LRT2 tokens to claim the underlying assets, with EtherFi describing the system as simplifying the rewards process and reducing transaction fees. Users will also receive an LRT2 governance token allowing users to participate in determining token whitelisting and treasury management.

“The purpose of LRT² is to wrap rewards distribution from a large number of AVSs and other restaking-related rewards into a single rewards token and create an industry standard,” the EtherFi said.

Domain attack

However, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for EtherFi, with the project’s website suffering a domain registrar attack resulting in its domain and subdomains getting taken over by malicious actors on Sept. 24.

“We’re glad to report that all funds are safe, and the attackers at no point presented a compromised dapp on any ether.fi related domain,” EtherFi said. “Users are safe to interact with ether.fi.”

The price of EtherFi’s ETHFI token is up 16.6% over the past seven days, according to The Defiant’s crypto price feed. EtherFi is the fourth-largest DeFi protocol by total value locked with $6.28 billion, according to DeFi Llama.