HostUSDE vs GHO — price, size and safety, side by side
USDE (Ethereum) vs GHO (Ethereum) — every figure is the freshest dated measurement we hold for that token, never a live-feed guess. Prices stamped 2026-09-27 / 2026-09-26.
USDE vs GHO — normalized performance, 2026-09-08 to 2026-09-26T18:07:24
| USDE | GHO | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.9991 | $0.9996 |
| Market cap | $4.94B | $697.96M |
| 24h volume | $10.82M | $1.72M |
| Liquidity | $14.81M | $26.48M |
| FDV | $4.94B | $697.96M |
| Holders | 48,804 | 8,133 |
| Age (days) | 66 | 368 |
| Safety grade | B | B |
Where they differ
- USDE measures ~7.1× the market cap of GHO
- GHO measures ~1.8× the liquidity of USDE
- USDE measures ~6.3× the 24h volume of GHO
- USDE measures ~6.0× the holder count of GHO
What the data says
USDE
USDe is Ethena's synthetic dollar — a stablecoin that holds its peg not with bank deposits but with a delta-neutral trade: spot crypto collateral (staked ETH, liquid stables) hedged by short perpetual futures, so the portfolio's dollar value stays flat whatever the market does. The contract 0x4c9edd5852cd905f086c759e8383e09bff1e68b3 is the canonical Ethereum deployment — USDe also exists on Solana under a different mint, where it is one of the deeper stable pools in our corpus. Our September 27, 2026 read shows $14.8 million of tracked pool liquidity on the mainnet venues.
The honest mechanics: USDe's yield is not magic — it is the funding-rate spread between staking yield and the perp market's willingness to pay longs, and that spread can and does go negative. When funding flips, Ethena pays the hedge instead of earning it, and the carry can invert into a slow bleed. The second layer is counterparty: the short positions sit on offshore exchanges through settlement custody, so exchange failures or frozen collateral are real, non-theoretical risks — the design survived the October 2025 liquidation cascade, which is evidence, not a guarantee. It is also not the same risk shape as UST: USDe is fully collateralized at inception; the failure mode is a sustained negative-funding grind plus a custody break, not a mint-redeem death spiral.
GHO
GHO is Aave's native stablecoin — minted against collateral deposited in the Aave protocol, with its monetary policy governed by Aave governance. The contract 0x40d16fc0246ad3160ccc09b8d0d3a2cd28ae6c2f is what our scan tracks: $26.5 million of pool liquidity as of September 26, 2026, trading essentially at its dollar peg.
The honest mechanics: GHO is overcollateralized-debt stablecoin design — borrowers mint it against Aave collateral, so its backing is the health of Aave's markets rather than a bank account. Peg deviations are the figure to watch: a stablecoin that trades below peg is the market pricing the collateral-and-arbitrage machinery's speed, and GHO's history includes real time spent under a dollar before stabilizers matured.
FAQ
Which is bigger, USDE or GHO?
By tracked market cap: USDE (Ethereum) measures $4.94B and GHO (Ethereum) measures $697.96M — dated snapshots, not a live feed.
Which is safer, USDE or GHO?
On the contract checks we publish: USDE (Ethereum) grades B and GHO (Ethereum) grades B. A grade is a structural check on the contract, not a promise about the asset.
How have USDE and GHO performed over the shared window?
Between 2026-09-08 and 2026-09-26T18:07:24, the measured snapshots show USDE at +0.01% and GHO at +0.16%.
More comparisons
USDE vs WEETHARC vs USDEUSDE vs UUSDE vs USDCUSD1 vs GHOTBTC vs GHOGHO vs UNIGHO vs FRXUSD
The grade column is the one CMC's compare page cannot print — our grade is computed from the contract itself (mint/freeze authority, liquidity, holder concentration). Changes are measured over the shared window stated on the chart, 2026-09-08→2026-09-26T18:07:24; a token with fewer measured points measures a shorter span inside it.
Figures are dated on-chain snapshots, not a live feed. Safety grades are structural checks — not investment advice. Free · no signup · a NexFlow product.