GHO

GHO is the dollar Aave decided to mint itself. Launched in 2023 and governed by the Aave DAO rather than any company, it is created when borrowers lock collateral in Aave's markets and draw GHO against it, making every token over-collateralized by design. Approved contracts called facilitators do the minting, each capped by governance, and the DAO steers the peg by moving the borrow rate: raise it to discourage new supply when GHO slips below a dollar, lower it to invite minting when demand runs hot. Arbitrageurs fill the gaps, buying cheap GHO to repay loans and retiring supply. There is no company redemption desk; a holder's claim runs through the protocol and the collateral behind it, permissionlessly. GHO is native to Ethereum, with newer deployments extending its reach, and it slots directly into Aave's lending machinery.