Coin columns · Arbitrum One City
USDai: A Synthetic Dollar Tied to Loans Backed by AI Chips
A dollar coin on Arbitrum for AI infrastructure finance
USDai is a dollar-pegged coin from the USD.AI protocol, and its yield-bearing companion token, sUSDai, draws part of its income from loans secured by GPUs, the chips that power AI. It appeared in 2025 on the Arbitrum blockchain.
1. A synthetic dollar for AI hardware finance
USDai is the base coin of the USD.AI protocol, developed by Permian Labs, and is a ‘synthetic dollar’ built to track one US dollar. ‘Synthetic’ here means the dollar value comes from on-chain assets and rules rather than bank deposits. The project says it wants smaller AI data-centre and compute operators to borrow against their GPUs (graphics processing units) more easily.
On the Crypto Nation map, USDai stands in Arbitrum One, because it was first issued on Arbitrum, the Ethereum scaling network where the protocol began. It is a young project, made public in 2025.
2. How USDai and sUSDai split the roles
According to a late-2025 risk report, a user deposits a dollar coin such as USDC, which is converted into $M, a Treasury-backed token issued through the M0 platform, and the same amount of USDai is minted. USDai is thus backed by short-term US Treasuries, with minting and redemption done on Arbitrum. Its role is a steady ‘payment and parking’ coin.
Staking USDai gives sUSDai, the token that receives the yield. The income comes from Treasury interest and from GPU-secured loans, which the report described as fixed-rate, three-year loans. Getting sUSDai back involves a 30-day wait, and requests are paid in order from available funds.
3. Uses and milestones
USDai is meant to serve as a deposit and collateral dollar in DeFi (decentralized finance, financial services run by code), including exchange pools, lending services and platforms that trade yields. It had an external security audit in May 2025, and in August the Arbitrum blog presented the project as being in beta, with a mainnet launch planned.
In September 2025 the first batch of sUSDai redemptions was processed, and a governance proposal asked to add USDai and sUSDai to Aave’s Arbitrum market. The risk-analysis firms Chaos Labs and LlamaRisk did not recommend listing them at that time.
4. Things to know
GPU-backed lending is a new field with its own risks. The report pointed out that GPUs lose value quickly, that there are no live price feeds (oracles) for the collateral, and that recovering equipment across countries after a default is untested. At the time, GPU loans were a very small part of the backing.
It also noted thin exchange liquidity, supply concentrated in a few contracts, and a period when USDai traded above one dollar after hitting its issuance cap. A synthetic dollar may lack the protections of a bank deposit or a regulated stablecoin, so understanding the structure and redemption terms matters.
Written from information public up to October 2026. It does not recommend or rate any coin and is not investment advice. If something is wrong, please tell us through the contact page.