USDai is a synthetic dollar stablecoin issued by USD.AI, a decentralized lending protocol. It was founded in 2025 by Permian Labs, whose co-founders are David Choi and Conor Moore.
The project aims to link decentralized finance with loans backed by AI hardware, compute and DePIN assets. It works on several chains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and Plasma, but new tokens are minted only on Arbitrum.
USD.AI puts pooled capital into loans backed by AI infrastructure such as GPUs. Borrower repayments become protocol revenue, and the setup is often compared to a high-yield bond index tied to real infrastructure.
USDai is designed to track the US dollar and lets arbitrageurs push its price back toward the peg. To earn yield, holders stake USDai for sUSDai, the yield-bearing version, and the rate changes with loan performance.
Data provided by CoinGecko
The ecosystem has three tokens: the USDai stablecoin, the yield-bearing sUSDai and the protocol token CHIP. In 2026, Permian Labs bought back CHIP from investor allocations.
sUSDai is also traded as a fixed-yield product on DeFi protocols such as Pendle. In September 2026, the project secured a 40 million dollar revolving credit facility from K3 Capital, backed by sUSDai as collateral.
Because its yield comes from real-world AI infrastructure loans, it offers a different income source from typical DeFi yields. It also connects fast-growing demand for AI compute with the financing needed to build it.
However, GPUs lose value quickly, so collateral may be worth less over time, and borrower defaults could cause losses. Smart contract risk, possible loss of the peg and regulatory changes also matter, and this overview is not investment advice.
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