Terminal Finance, a spot decentralized exchange (DEX) designed for trading yield-bearing stablecoins, has surpassed $280 million in total value locked (TVL) during its pre-deposit phase. The figure reflects the total capacity of its three vaults, which reached their caps of 225 million USDe, 10,000 WETH, and 100 WBTC before the platform’s official debut.

An Exchange Built on Ethena’s Foundation

While operating independently, Terminal Finance is incubated by Ethena and positioned as the primary DEX within its ecosystem. The platform will use Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, and its interest-earning counterpart, sUSDe, as core assets for trading against major cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and Bitcoin. This design leverages a yield-bearing dollar to create more efficient market economics from the start.

Sam Benyakoub, Co-Founder and CEO of Terminal, explained that the goal is to build deep liquidity pools for trading USDe against a range of assets, from crypto to tokenized real-world assets. He noted that designing the DEX around a yield-bearing dollar makes bootstrapping liquidity more efficient and sets a new standard for capital productivity in Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

Innovative Yield Skimming Mechanism

Terminal Finance distinguishes itself from traditional exchanges with its Yield Skimming system. This mechanism captures the yield generated by assets like sUSDe and reinjects it directly into the DEX economy. The process is designed to benefit liquidity providers, traders, and token holders by improving the financial efficiency of its on-chain markets.

Strong Community Backing and Upcoming Launch

The pre-deposit phase attracted participation from over 10,000 unique wallets, signaling strong early interest. The exchange is scheduled to launch near the end of the year, with its Token Generation Event (TGE) expected to occur around the same time. Early participants will be rewarded with an airdrop as part of the TGE.

According to information from Ethena, up to 10% of Terminal’s governance token supply may be distributed to sENA holders through a points system that began tracking on June 28. Final details on eligibility and allocations will be confirmed closer to the launch. Looking ahead, Terminal plans to expand across multiple blockchains in line with Ethena’s growth strategy, aiming to become a leading liquidity hub for yield-bearing stablecoins in DeFi.