Ethena, the decentralized finance protocol behind the USDe synthetic dollar, has begun using tokenized equities as collateral for its signature basis trade, marking the first time the strategy has moved beyond cryptocurrency markets. The expansion, announced Thursday, pairs Binance’s bStocks with short positions in the exchange’s equity perpetual futures, allowing the protocol to collect funding payments from leveraged long traders while hedging against stock price movements.

Binance will serve as the initial venue for the equity basis trade, with allocations starting immediately. Ethena said the move expands the addressable market for underlying collateral from roughly $2.5 trillion in crypto assets to more than $150 trillion in…