Research article · Revenue & valuation

USD.AI: A real lending business. But does $CHIP get any of it?

USD.AI's loan book went from $3M to $311M this year with ~$35-40M in annualized fees. CHIP holders get $0 of it, so far.

Loan book$3M → $311Min 2026
Annualized fees~$35-40M~90% to depositors
CHIP holder revenue$0at publication
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Research snapshot · 27 Oct 2026

The business

USD.AI lends to smaller GPU operators against their hardware, at ~72% LTV on average and without reported defaults. About 90% of fees go to depositors, so protocol revenue is more like $4-9M a year.

The token

CHIP is a governance token without automatic revenue share. On market cap it is priced roughly like Maple, on FDV 4-8x more expensive, with only ~20% circulating and a big unlock in April 2027.

The upside

It depends on whether the company or governance starts sending value to the token. The $1M buyback the day before publication was the clearest step in that direction.

USD.AI active loans compared with capital not lent out
Active loans and capital not lent out at month end. Sources in the original research: DefiLlama and KuCoin News.
USD.AI quarterly gross fees by source, including estimated loan interest
Quarterly gross fees by source. Light green and Q4 are estimates from the original loan-level model.

Updates since publication

  1. USD.AI proposed programmatic CHIP buys from sUSDai net interest, about $3.7M a year by my estimate. Origination fees move to USDAI Inc.

    Post on X ↗

  2. A $106M facility for NexGen Cloud through GLX, with Silver Point and Victory Park lending alongside.

    Post on X ↗

Sources & related reading

The main thesis of this piece is followed in the track record →

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