Earn+ is live on Ethena Pay, powered by Upshift

Ethena Pay is rolling out Earn+, a second dollar balance in their neobank app that earns higher rewards and has no lockup. Steakhouse Financial is running the onchain strategy across Aave, and Upshift is powering a vault holding deposits and handling withdrawals.

Ethena Pay has started rolling out Earn+ to eligible users. Earn+ sits next to the Main balance in the app, and a user moves dollars into it with one tap to earn higher rewards than Main pays. There's no lockup, and the money can come back to Main at any time. Behind the button, Steakhouse Financial runs the strategy. Upshift runs the vault that holds the deposits. Ethena announced the launch on X in October 2026 as a phased rollout, and Earn+ is subject to the third-party vault terms shown in the app.

Ethena Pay is Ethena's money app

Ethena launched Ethena Pay on 3 September 2026 as "the internet money app" for saving, sending and spending with a phone and an internet connection. It combines free onramps in local currency and dollars, a multi-currency fiat account, a card with up to 5% cashback and a self-custodial stablecoin wallet in one interface. Dollar balances in the app earn rewards through USDe. Ethena has run that digital dollar since February 2024, and it grew past $15bn at its peak.

Ethena Pay describes itself as a non-custodial money app. Users hold their own balances, and the app handles the steps on stablecoin rails without showing them.

Earn+ adds a second, higher-earning balance

The Main balance earns the standard USDe rewards. Earn+ puts the same dollars into a lending and borrowing strategy on Aave that aims to offer an additional way to earn. A user doesn't open a position, borrow or move funds between protocols to get there. They tap once in Ethena Pay, the app deposits into the vault, and the Earn+ balance shows what it has earned since.

Withdrawals work the same way in reverse. The user taps to move money back to Main, the vault returns the USDe, and the balance updates in the app. Ethena is opening Earn+ in phases.

Steakhouse runs a USDe strategy on lending markets

At launch the strategy loops USDe on onchain lending markets using Aave. The vault posts USDe as collateral, borrows stablecoins against it and turns the borrowed dollars back into USDe, which goes back in as more collateral. The position ends up holding more USDe than was deposited, and it earns the USDe rewards on that larger amount minus the cost of borrowing. Steakhouse watches the borrow rate against the reward rate and sizes the loop to keep a safety margin above the lending market's liquidation level. When borrowing gets expensive, the strategy unwinds part of the loop. This is work Earn+ users no longer have to do themselves.

Steakhouse Financial describes itself as "the credit stack for the stablecoin economy". It builds onchain stablecoin and yield products for fintechs, exchanges and asset managers. Its site lists $4.22B in noncustodial assets supplied as of 12 October 2026.

Upshift runs the vault between the app and the strategy

Upshift provides the vault contract that sits between Ethena Pay and the strategy. Deposits come in as USDe, and each depositor receives vault shares whose value rises as the strategy earns. The vault tracks every user's share, processes withdrawals and sends the balance data back to the app for display. Steakhouse runs the strategy from a separate account connected to the vault, and the vault's owner role sits with a multisig rather than with any single person.

Ethena kept the parts its users see: the app, the product decisions and the customer relationship. Upshift has now run more than 50 vaults across 30+ chains, and its contracts have been through 11 smart contract audits by 6 independent firms (listed on the Upshift docs). Fintechs and asset managers use the same infrastructure to add stablecoin yield to their own products, with options that range from 24/7 tokenized money market funds to DeFi strategies like this one.

"Ethena Pay users can move dollars into Earn+ with one tap and take them back out without a lockup. Steakhouse runs the strategy and Upshift runs the vault underneath, while Ethena keeps the whole experience inside its own app. We expect more consumer apps to offer yield this way."

Aya Kantorovich, co-founder, Upshift

The risks that come with Earn+

A looped position carries more risk than holding USDe on its own. If borrow rates rise above the USDe reward rate, the loop earns less than Main, or loses money, until it's resized. A sharp move in USDe's market price on a lending venue can push the position toward liquidation, and the strategy depends on those lending markets having enough liquidity to unwind. Smart contract risk applies to the vault, the lending markets and USDe itself. Rewards aren't guaranteed and change with market conditions.

Always make sure to do your own research and be aware of the above and any other risks before depositing.

Keep reading

• How neobanks and fintechs offer stablecoin yield
• How the earnAUSD looping vault works on Jumper
• Issue a stablecoin or use a stablecoin vault