Co-founder of Maelstrom, Arthur Hayes, has been quietly accumulating nearly $1 million worth of ENA tokens from Ethena in the last 48 hours, recent on-chain data revealed. The move comes just as Hyperliquid validators prepare to vote on a proposal deciding the stablecoin ticker USDH.
Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that Hayes made multiple ENA purchases 578,956 tokens worth nearly $521,000 and some more before that. This aggregates to ~$995,000 in ENA over the last two days. Some other media reports showed that Hayes now holds around 1.22 million ENA tokens, while some others have claimed that his ENA wallet is worth $3.48 million after these recent buys.
The timing of this all is very significant as it comes just before a crucial Hyperliquid governance vote, scheduled for Sunday, 14th September. In this vote, validators will decide which issuer gets the USDH ticker and under what terms.
With Hayes’ accumulation happening just ahead of the vote, it could sway sentiment, especially as validators have to decide among competing proposals. Buying a competing project’s governance token close to a vote is often interpreted by markets as a signal of confidence or perhaps an attempt to influence price and perception.
Ethena’s USDH proposal vs others
Ethena has put forward a proposal to issue USDH using its own USDtb stablecoin, backing it through BlackRock’s “BUIDL fund”. Under their plan, 95% of revenue would flow to Hyperliquid; costs for migrating trading pairs away from USDC would be covered. With Hayes’s buying, there could be upward pressure on ENA, influencing perceptions of which proposal has momentum. Moreover, validators who stake ENA or otherwise care about Ethena might be more likely to favor its proposal if they see a large actor backing it.
Other major contenders include Paxos (integrated with PayPal), Native Markets, and others offering different structures and benefits such as yield sharing, escrowed reserves, or liquidity incentives. The USDH vote could shape which protocol and which vision gets adopted.
Also, this is not Hayes’ first time accumulating ENA. Earlier in July, for instance, he reportedly purchased 2.16 million ENA tokens, a move that corresponded with a price uptick. He has also made bullish public predictions on ENA, saying that the token could increase significantly of up to ~51× over the next few years, depending on the growth of stablecoins, especially if Ethena’s USDe adoption continues scaling.
What is USDH, and why does this matter?
USDH is expected to be a “native stablecoin” ticker on the Hyperliquid network. Hyperliquid is a layer-1 or DEX+ ecosystem that wants to integrate a stablecoin called USDH. Validating which issuer gets to provide it with what backing, what revenue sharing, and what collateral is the subject of the ongoing vote.
And because stablecoins are central to many DeFi functions, the design and issuer of USDH could reverberate through the Hyperliquid ecosystem and broader markets. Also, significant financial interests are at stake, since holders of ENA or other competing tokens might benefit if their preferred proposal wins.