Aave’s GHO Stablecoin Finally Achieves Parity With USD

GHO, the decentralized stablecoin from the leading DeFi lending protocol, has finally achieved parity with the U.S. dollar.

On Feb. 6, Stani Kulechov, the founder of Aave, celebrated the news via tweet and shared a screenshot indicating GHO was trading for $1.

“Was a long journey for the Aave community to get here and now, finally, after six months, the overcollateralized GHO is now finally at peg,” Kulichov tweeted. “Congrats to the Aave community for enabling fundamental building blocks for DeFi and payments.”

However, data from CoinGecko indicates GHO last changed hands for $0.996 after briefly tagging $1 twice within six hours roughly half a day ago. GHO consistently traded near $0.98 throughout December and most of January.

GHO’s path to dollar-parity

GHO was launched in July 2023, allowing Aave users to mint the stablecoin while using assets deposited to the lending platform as collateral.

However, the token was quickly marred by its inability to maintain parity with USD. GHO slumped to a low of $0.96 in late October and mid-November, prompting action from the Aave team. The downward price pressure was caused by Staked AAVE holders taking advantage of favorable borrow rates to arbitrage the token against DAI and earn yield via the DAI Saving Rate.

On Oct. 31, TokenBrice, a member of the Aave Liquidity Committee, outlined plans to drive the token’s price towards $1 through actively managed liquidity positions on DeFi protocols including Maverick Protocol, among other measures. The move appeared successful, with GHO trading above $0.98 by December.

Aave is also preparing to launch the GHO Stability Module (GSM) — a protocol allowing roughly one-to-one swaps between GHO and other stablecoins —to support the stablecoin’s price.

Although the GSM has been under discussion since August, a formal proposal outlining parameters for its deployment was passed on Jan. 13.