Unlike asset-backed stablecoins like tether (USDT) and USDC, whose value is secured against dollars or dollar-equivalents such as U.S. government debt, USDe calls itself a synthetic stablecoin with its $1 value maintained through a financial technique known as the cash-and-carry trade. The trade, which involves buying an asset and simultaneously shorting a derivative of the asset to collect the funding rate, or the difference between the two prices, is well known in traditional finance and doesn’t carry directional, or delta, risk.