Janus Henderson, a $480 billion asset manager, has established a position in Ethena's governance token ENA through its ANTIK blockchain venture. According to reports from The Block, the firm intends to utilize staked USDe for cash management under a strategic partnership aimed at expanding institutional access to tokenized financial infrastructure. The partnership represents a significant move by one of the world's leading asset managers into the blockchain-based financial products space, with ENA jumping 5% following the announcement before paring gains. As Nick Cherney, head of innovation at Janus Henderson Investors, told Coindesk, "We are really excited about the possibility here. We believe very deeply that innovation in blockchain is being led by the defi community, and that we need to continue to forge partnerships with leading founders and protocols."
The partnership extends beyond tokenization to include regulated investment vehicles for USDe and ENA, potentially including exchange-traded funds and exchange-traded products. As reported by The Block, these products are expected to launch in the second half of 2026. Ethena founder Guy Young expressed excitement about the collaboration, stating that Janus Henderson's distribution reach and deep institutional relationships will be instrumental in bringing Ethena's products to institutional investors in a way that is accessible, familiar, and built for scale. The firms are also exploring ways to offer USDe to Janus Henderson clients through exchange-traded investment products.
As part of the partnership, Ethena is integrating Janus Henderson's JAAA strategy into USDe's reserve portfolio. According to The Block, the strategy, managed by Janus Henderson, invests in AAA-rated collateralized loan obligations and has been positioned by the firm as part of its broader push into tokenized real-world assets through partnerships with blockchain infrastructure providers, including Centrifuge. Under the agreement, Ethena will allocate and help distribute Janus Henderson's tokenized funds of collateralized loan obligations (CLO), as the protocol announced in a Tuesday X post. The tokenized fund, built with Centrifuge under the Anemoy structure, mirrors Janus Henderson's $27 billion AAA CLO ETF, the largest of its kind, with the onchain version launched in 2025 seeded with $1 billion from the Sky ecosystem through Grove.
Janus Henderson began moving into tokenization as early as September 2024, following BlackRock and Fidelity International into onchain capital markets. The firm took over management of the $11 million Anemoy Liquid Treasury Fund, a tokenized fund investing in short-term U.S. Treasury bills. The asset manager is also listed as a partner alongside BlackRock in Grove's Basin infrastructure, which launched last month with up to $1 billion in daily stablecoin liquidity capacity. This deal comes days after Coinbase Ventures invested in Ethena and announced a partnership to bring Ethena products to its user base of more than 100 million users. ENA is currently trading near $0.083, down about 7% over the past 24 hours as broader crypto markets slipped, sitting far below its 2024 high near $1.52.
The partnership fits into the trend of traditional finance firms increasingly embracing and backing decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. Earlier this year, BlackRock expanded its tokenized money market fund through a partnership with Uniswap and invested an undisclosed amount in the decentralized exchange's UNI token. Apollo Global Management struck a deal with lending protocol Morpho to bring tokenized private credit assets onchain. Ethena has grown into one of the largest decentralized finance protocols by offering yield through its USDe token, which combines stablecoin demand with derivatives-based hedging strategies. After reaching roughly $15 billion in assets during last year's market rally, the protocol currently manages about $5 billion as crypto markets continue to recover from a prolonged downturn. The deal arrives as Janus Henderson moves toward a take-private buyout led by Trian Fund Management and General Catalyst, leaving the price response to play out in the days ahead.
