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[Aave]

GHO

Grade
D
Date of Rating:
August 30th, 2023
Last Change:
August 30th, 2023
SMIDGE Scores
[S] Stability
[M] Management
[I] Implementation
[D] Decentralization
[G] Governance
[E] Externals
[S]
N/A
[M]
N/A
[I]
N/A
[D]
N/A
[G]
N/A
[E]
N/A
GHO Price
Last Update:
04/09/2026 10:01:00
$0.998924
Market Cap
$698,248,213
24h Volume
$5,814,894
Collater­alization
295%
Peg
USD
Backing
Crypto
Data provided by
Coingecko
SMIDGE Scores
[S] Stability
[M] Management
[I] Implementation
[D] Decentralization
[G] Governance
[E] Externals
[S]
N/A
[M]
N/A
[I]
N/A
[D]
N/A
[G]
N/A
[E]
N/A
Core Team
  • Hidden Name
  • Hidden Name
Audits
Native Chains
  • Chain
Links
Full Report
Scoring Guidelines
[S]
[M]
[I]
[D]
[G]
[E]
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Aave
D
  • GHO is a new USD-pegged stablecoin launched in July 2023 by Aave, a leading money-market protocol on Ethereum, and is fully governed by the Aave DAO.
  • It is a CDP-style stablecoin that can be minted (borrowed) against collateral supplied into the Aave app.
  • Since its launch, GHO has been consistently trading around $0.97-0.985. A reclaim of GHO’s peg seems unlikely in the short term due to: (i) lack of strong stability mechanisms to enforce a $1 peg (ii) a low cost of borrowing GHO that incentivizes supply increases and (iii) anticipated sell pressure on GHO arising from a leveraged-yield strategy enabled by the onboarding of sDAI as collateral on Aave v3.
  • While GHO has low Management, Decentralization and Governance risks, it does not meet the minimum standard for Stability. GHO holders are exposed to significant price and liquidity risks. Due to low borrowing rates and no reserve redemption mechanism, GHO’s price is more likely to drop further than increase.
  • GHO, in its current form, is unsafe. We caution users against holding GHO.

Despite our rating, we believe GHO already has many key ingredients in place to become a safe, decentralized stablecoin, provided that it implements stability-enhancing changes to its design. 

GHO's rating can be improved to a B+/B by:

  • enabling redemption of GHO for collateral or
  • enabling GHO as a collateral asset with high LTV.

 

Aave
Stability

The Stability factor is evaluated on the following:

  1. Reserves Management - Quality, quantity, storage and segregation of reserve assets
  2. Market Feedback - Indicators of market's confidence in a stablecoin derived from price and trade data
  3. Mechanism - Stabilization methods that protect the stablecoin
Aave
Management

The Management factor is evaluated on the following:

  1. Restrictions - What deterrents exist to prevent key personnel of stablecoin projects from unethical and illegal behavior?
  2. Negative Track Record - Have key personnel been involved in scams, frauds or other illegal activities?
Aave
Implementation

USDT contracts are covered by independent security assessments. However, deployed code differs from assessed version for most of the outstanding supply.

Mint, freeze, and blacklist authority sits behind a single multisig on every chain, with no timelock and no cap on issuance. No mint path references attested backing.

powered by
Aave
Decentralization

The Decentralization factor is evaluated on the following:

  1. Platform Censorship Risk
  2. Custodian Risk
  3. Type of Collateral
  4. Diversified Voting Power
  5. User Censorship Risk

 

Aave
Governance

The Governance factor for on-chain stablecoins is evaluated on the following:

  1. Voting Systems - Does the governance function have binding votes and automated on-chain execution of proposal outcomes?
  2. Anti-Governance Attack Measures - Are there appropriate preventive and reactive measures to counter governance attacks?
Aave
Externals

This factor evaluates external feedback using indicators like prediction markets, social sentiment, perpetual futures, and more.

Currently, we do not assign a standalone score to this factor. An independent assessment of external feedback will be included in future iterations.