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Head-to-head · Stablecoins

GHO (Aave) vs USDe GHO (Aave) leads by 1 point.

GHO (Aave) scores 1 point above USDe, led by redemption right exercised. GHO (Aave) ranks #8 and USDe #9 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.

GHO (Aave)56
USDe55
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #8 and #9 of 11
Methodology v2026.10.18Ranking snapshot Evidence verified through 4 published criteria5 score dimensions Receipt #cc-VS-GHO-AAVE-VS-USDE-73d55b4a
Published verdictRanking snapshot 3 November 2026

GHO (Aave) leads by 1 point

GHO (Aave) scores 1 point above USDe, led by redemption right exercised.

GHO (Aave) #8 of 1156
USDe #9 of 1155
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termGHO (Aave) leads on 1 of 4 published criteria; USDe on 2. The terms sum to the gap.
TermGHO (Aave)USDeWeightPoints
Redemption right exercised3/101/106.7+3.5for GHO (Aave)+1.8 of 32
Reserve and assurance scope2/103/105.8−1.5for USDe−0.8 of 32
Seizure and upgrade authority6/107/104.3−1.1for USDe−0.6 of 32
Net of the terms+0.9
Criteria roundingThe criteria block is rounded to whole points before it is spread+0.2
Reproduced gap+1.0

Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.

  • A row-above bound on one row means the criterion arithmetic does not reproduce the displayed gap exactly.
Quick facts

At a glance

2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactGHO (Aave)USDe
PricingSnapshotPUBLISHED (marketing, https://aave.com/gho, fetched 29 September 2026): "Swap USDC, USDT for GHO at 1:1 — free to redeem." The same page's numeric counters (Max swap fee, Total Backing, Total Reserves, current borrow and savings rates) are still rendered client-side and serve placeholders to a non-browser fetch, so no fee or rate figure is readable from the page as published; the quoted sentence is the only static fee statement on it. NO BINDING DOCUMENT PRICES ANYTHING: the Aave Terms of Service (https://aave.com/terms-of-service, rewritten, "Updated 07 September 2026") and the Aave App Terms of Service (https://aave.com/legal/app/terms-of-service, "Updated 14 August 2026"), both fetched 29 September 2026, contain no mint fee, no redemption fee and no minimum, and mention GHO only in the footer menu. ACTUAL LIVE PRICING, read on-chain 29 September 2026 at Ethereum block 26,082,183 via https://ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com: GSM_USDT 0x882285E62656b9623AF136Ce3078c6BdCc33F5E3 returns getFeeStrategy() = 0x06fbDE909B43f01202E3C6207De1D27cC208AcC1, whose getSellFee(1e18) = 0 and getBuyFee(1e18) = 1e15, i.e. 0.00% to convert USDT into GHO and 0.10% to convert GHO back out; GSM_USDC 0x3A3868898305f04beC7FEa77BecFf04C13444112 now returns a DIFFERENT strategy, 0xfDB0090A92d20EE39d82ac680477b1F58f0A23dE, whose getSellFee(1e18) = 0 and getBuyFee(1e18) = 1.5e15, i.e. 0.15% to leave via USDC (on 19 August 2026 both GSMs used the 0.10% strategy). WORKED EXAMPLE (label: on-chain read, not a page price): GSM_USDT getGhoAmountForBuyAsset(1000000000) returns 1,000.000000 waEthUSDT for 1,178.220242 GHO, of which gross 1,177.043199 GHO and fee 1.177043 GHO. CAPACITY: GSM_USDT getAvailableLiquidity() = 16,136,899.348701 waEthUSDT (worth 19,012,821.45 GHO by getGhoAmountForBuyAsset) and GSM_USDC 0.029227 waEthUSDC, so the par exit covers 2.72% of the 699,000,000 GHO supply (7.60% on 19 August 2026); the exit pays a wrapped Aave deposit receipt (waEthUSDT / waEthUSDC), not dollars. There is NO minimum and NO account requirement: buyAsset and sellAsset carry only the notFrozen and notSeized modifiers, and getIsFrozen() and getIsSeized() both return false on both GSMs. BORROWING: Aave v3 Pool 0x87870Bca3F3fD6335C3F4ce8392D69350B4fA4E2 getReserveData(GHO) at the same block returns currentVariableBorrowRate = 4.25% (3.75% on 19 August 2026). CAUTION FOR THE NEXT READER: neither live fee-strategy address appears in Aave's own documentation, https://aave.com/docs/ecosystem/gho.md (fetched 29 September 2026), whose address table still lists GSMUSDCFixedFeeStrategy 0xE5025A7c15a44283A0616567181587eE6A646D64 and GSMUSDTFixedFeeStrategy 0xA4346AEa575fCf5777D32F419E5850E5c68B2329; all fees above were read from the live contracts.ISSUER FEES: NIL, STATED. USDe Terms and Conditions (https://docs.ethena.fi/resources/usde-terms-and-conditions.md, "Last Updated: August 2025", fetched 29 September 2026), section 12 "Fees; Authorization": "Except as disclosed to you prior to completing a transaction as a Mint User, Ethena BVI will not charge you any fees for tokenizing assets for USDe, or receiving USDe. Any cost of executing a mint or redemption transaction is a cost reimbursement to cover friction such as blockchain gas fees or execution fees paid by Ethena BVI." USDe Mint User Agreement (https://docs.ethena.fi/resources/usde-mint-user-agreement.md, "Last Updated: August 2025", fetched 29 September 2026), section 9 "Fees": "The Company may charge fees in connection with the Services, which will typically not represent fees for the Company’s own account and will constitute reimbursements for costs associated with transactions initiated by you, such as blockchain gas fees and execution fees." and "The applicable Digital Currency network may charge a fee in connection with blockchain transactions. You are responsible for all such fees." MINIMUMS: THE PAGES ARE SILENT. Neither binding document publishes a mint or redemption minimum; re-searched 29 September 2026, "minimum" still appears exactly once in each document, in both cases as severability boilerplate. What replaces a published minimum is a published discretion, Mint User Agreement section 12 "Transaction Limits": "The Company reserves the right to change the mint, redemption, transfer, and velocity limits as we deem necessary." and "We may establish individual or aggregate transaction limits on the size or number of mints, redemptions, transfers or other transactions that you initiate using your status as a Mint User during any specified time period." Unlike Tether, which publishes a 100,000 USD floor and a redemption fee a reader can price, Ethena publishes no number at all — access is gated by whitelisting, not by a posted ticket size. CONVERSION RATE ON THE WAY IN, Terms section 13 "Currency Conversion": "All tokenizations of assets will be credited in USDe to your whitelisted wallet(s) based on a rate of one (1) USDe per 1 USD ($1) of notional value", with that value set as follows: "Such value shall be calculated by Ethena BVI based on the asset in its sole discretion". NOTE FOR THE CARD: a zero issuer fee is not a cheap product here — it is a fee schedule for a counterparty class the retail reader cannot join (Terms section 2: "If you are a Holding User, you do not have a right to redeem USDe with Ethena BVI."). The retail cost of entry and exit is the market spread, which this spec grades at zero.
Asset coverageEditorial——
Region fitSnapshotglobalglobal
From the published criteria

Which should you pick?

GHO (Aave)

56#8 of 11
Leads
Pick it when
Pick GHO (Aave) if redemption right exercised matters most — it scores 3/10 to USDe's 1/10 there (weight 28).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 6/10
Tradeoff
Nobody owes you anything, and the page that says otherwise is not a contract. aave.com/gho sells GHO as "Every GHO is backed by more than $1 of crypto held inside Aave." and "Swap USDC, USDT for GHO at 1:1 — free to redeem." — but the only binding documents Aave publishes, its Terms of Service (Updated 07 September 2026) and Aave App Terms of Service (Updated 14 August 2026), never use the words 'redeem' or 'redemption', never mention GHO outside the footer menu, name two different counterparties ('Aave Labs' and 'Aave Interfaces Ltd'), and state "We do not act as your broker, exchange, lender, borrower, counterparty, agent, adviser, trustee or fiduciary in connection with your use of the Protocol." and "We do not take possession, custody or control of your digital assets or funds." What you get instead is better than nothing and worse than a right: a permissionless protocol swap facility that any wallet can use today with no account, no KYC and no minimum — but it charges 0.10% to leave through the USDT leg and 0.15% through the USDC leg while entry is free, it pays you a wrapped Aave deposit receipt rather than dollars, on 2026-09-29 it covered 19.01m GHO against a 699,000,000 supply (2.72%), with the USDC leg down to 0.029227 units, and a single governance transaction can switch it off. That is exactly what happened to its predecessor on 2025-03-17, when $24.0m of exit inventory was swept to the treasury in one transaction and both swap contracts were disabled for good, with no un-seize function in the code.

USDe

55#9 of 11
Pick it when
Pick USDe if reserve and assurance scope matters most — it scores 3/10 to GHO (Aave)'s 2/10 there (weight 24).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 7/10
Tradeoff
That you are not the customer. USDe Terms and Conditions, opening paragraph (https://docs.ethena.fi/resources/usde-terms-and-conditions.md, read 2026-08-19 (verification pass)): "For the avoidance of doubt, Holding Users are not customers of Ethena BVI." and section 2: "If you are a Holding User, you do not have a right to redeem USDe with Ethena BVI." Unless you are KYC-whitelisted as a Mint User — a status Ethena's docs describe as "subject to clearing KYC/KYB checks exclusively for approved market making counterparties" (https://docs.ethena.fi/overview/ethena-overview, read 2026-08-19 (verification pass)), and which US residents are barred from by Mint User Agreement section 1 ("Users in the United States are not eligible to become a Mint User.") — your only exit is selling to someone else at whatever the market pays. Compounding it, the redemption a Mint User does get is in kind and pro rata, "Ethena BVI (or an affiliate designated by Ethena BVI) commits to redeem 1 USDe for the notional value relating to its pro rata portion of the USDe Reserves in supported digital assets, up to a maximum amount of 1 USD in notional value, subject to these Terms, applicable law, and any fees where applicable." — a cap, not a floor — and section 11 confirms the reserves "Ethena BVI does not guarantee that the value of one (1) USDe will always or ever equal 1 USD ($1) on any platform. Due to a variety of factors, the value of USDe on third-party platforms such as cryptocurrency exchange platforms could fluctuate above or below 1 USD ($1), and the risk factors highlighted at docs.ethena.fi (as well as presently unknown risk factors) may result in the USDe Reserves falling to less than 1 USD ($1) of notional value per USDe in circulation." None of this is reachable from the product site: as served on 2026-08-19, https://ethena.fi/ contains the word "terms" nowhere in its delivered payload, while its footer strings "Careers" and "Brand Kit" do appear, proving the footer ships and the contract link does not.
Self-identify in 10 seconds

Which one is actually for you?

GHO (Aave)Leads

Choose GHO (Aave) if redemption right exercised matters most

  • Redemption right exercised: 3/10 against 1/10 for USDe (weight 28)
USDe

Choose USDe if reserve and assurance scope matters most

  • Reserve and assurance scope: 3/10 against 2/10 for GHO (Aave) (weight 24)
  • Seizure and upgrade authority: 7/10 against 6/10 for GHO (Aave) (weight 18)
Criterion by criterion

Scorecard

Published criteria · weight in points of 868 of 8 cells scored. Strength is read from the evidence file; the weight is the published one. Methodology

Counterparty and insolvency rank

weight 7.2 of 86Tie
GHO (Aave)1 out of 10
USDe1 out of 10

Redemption right exercised

by 2 of 10weight 6.7 of 86GHO (Aave) leads
GHO (Aave)3 out of 10
USDe1 out of 10

Reserve and assurance scope

by 1 of 10weight 5.8 of 86USDe leads
GHO (Aave)2 out of 10
USDe3 out of 10

Seizure and upgrade authority

by 1 of 10weight 4.3 of 86USDe leads
GHO (Aave)6 out of 10
USDe7 out of 10

Score dimensions

weights sum to 86

The published score is five dimensions, each weighted for the category. "Published criteria" is the criteria block above; the other four are the engine's own terms — availability, friction, trust record, measured data. Each bar is one side's points out of that dimension's maximum; the weight beside the name is its points of the 86-point weighted total. The published criteria above can fill 24 of the block’s 30. A weight marked “constant here” belongs to a dimension every ranked product in the category holds at the same value: it still counts in the total, and it orders nothing here.

Availabilityweight 20 of 86 · constant here
GHO (Aave)14/20USDe14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
GHO (Aave)6.5/30USDe6.1/30
GHO (Aave) leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
GHO (Aave)2.7/10USDe2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
GHO (Aave)3.2/8USDe3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
GHO (Aave)8.3/18USDe8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order

Choose GHO (Aave) unless the term USDe leads on is the one you are buying.

Pick USDe if reserve and assurance scope matters most — it scores 3/10 to GHO (Aave)'s 2/10 there (weight 24).

The published order weighs every criterion the same way for everyone. To weigh them your way, run .

From the published order

Next best action

If this isn't your case

Other matchups worth comparing

How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
  • Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
    Scored by Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · 18% (GHO (Aave) 6/10, USDe 7/10)
  • Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.
    Scored by Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? · 30% (GHO (Aave) 1/10, USDe 1/10)
    Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (GHO (Aave) 2/10, USDe 3/10)
  • Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.
    Scored by Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? · 28% (GHO (Aave) 3/10, USDe 1/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Questions

Frequently asked questions

GHO (Aave) scores 1 point above USDe, led by redemption right exercised. Published scores, out of 100: GHO (Aave) 56 (rank 8 of 11 stablecoins), USDe 55 (rank 9 of 11).

Related pages

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Written and reviewed by Founder
Reviewed Next review by Methodology v2026.10.18
How this page is reviewed

Reviewed means both products compared here was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.

Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.

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