Alchemix USD

Deposit collateral, borrow against the yield it will earn, and let that yield quietly pay the loan down to zero - that is the self-repaying loan behind alUSD. Launched in 2021 by the pseudonymous Alchemix team, the token is a synthetic dollar minted when users lock assets like DAI into the protocol and borrow up to half their value. Because the debt is repaid automatically by returns on the full deposit, positions are structured to avoid the forced liquidations that plague ordinary crypto lending. No company stands behind alUSD; it is an onchain claim redeemed through the Alchemix protocol itself, governed by ALCX token holders rather than a legal issuer. It trades across Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum and Fantom. The peg has wobbled at times, as synthetic dollars tend to, but the self-repaying mechanic remains one of the more original ideas the sector has produced.