USD.AI

CHIP is the governance token of USD.AI, a protocol that lends stablecoin deposits to AI companies against GPUs. It is not a stablecoin.

USD.AI is a lending protocol for AI infrastructure, developed by Permian Labs. Depositors put in dollars and receive USDai, a dollar token backed 1:1 by PayPal USD. They can stake it as sUSDai, which earns interest paid by borrowers and Treasury bill yield on idle reserves. Borrowers are GPU cloud and data centre operators that take three-year, fixed-rate loans secured by their hardware.

CHIP is a separate token. It is not pegged to the dollar. CHIP holders vote on the rules of the protocol: which GPUs count as collateral, base interest rates, fees, borrower eligibility and contract upgrades. Staked CHIP, called sCHIP, acts as a backstop that can be slashed to cover bad debt for sUSDai holders. The USD.AI Foundation says CHIP gives no right to protocol revenue.

CHIP went live on 21 April 2026 on Arbitrum, Base and Ethereum. Total supply is 10 billion, of which 2 billion circulated in October 2026. Core contributors and investors together hold 52.7% and stay locked for the first 12 months. At the end of August 2026 the protocol reported $492.1 million in total value locked and $281.8 million deployed in loans over its lifetime.