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title: [ARFC] GHO CEX Earn Incentive Program author: @TokenLogic created: 2025-06-05

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Summary

To maximize the impact of GHO’s upcoming listings on Bybit, Bitget, and other centralized exchanges (CEXs), this publication proposes engaging a market maker to provide spot liquidity and allocating funds to a CEX Earn program to drive broader adoption of GHO.

Motivation

Listing GHO on centralized exchanges serves as a strategic lever to broaden its adoption by tapping into a wider and more diverse user base. It opens a powerful new distribution channel, allowing the Aave DAO to strengthen GHO’s market presence and accelerate its global reach.

• Expanded Audience: Access to retail and institutional users who primarily operate on CEXs and are less familiar with decentralized and on-chain stablecoins.
• New Utility: Enables GHO to be used as collateral in perpetual contracts and other financial products not currently available within DeFi.
• Enhanced Liquidity and Visibility: CEX listings improve global accessibility and strengthen GHO’s brand recognition through higher trading volumes and broader market exposure.

While several stablecoins are already entrenched on centralized platforms, GHO's success will hinge on delivering a compelling value proposition that differentiates it from more established alternatives. By leveraging the Aave Protocol as a native yield engine, GHO can replicate the successful strategies of stablecoins like USDtb and USDe, channeling yield from the GSMs directly to CEX users, incentivizing them to hold and use GHO.

Earn Campaign Structure

To accelerate GHO’s adoption, we propose a user acquisition incentive that rewards users for simply holding GHO on the CEX—regardless of how or where it's used on the platform. This mechanism mirrors the experience of depositing into an on-chain Earn vault, allowing users to earn yield passively while maintaining full flexibility.

By offering native yield on CEX-held GHO, we aim to drive broader usage across the exchange’s ecosystem—spanning spot, derivatives, and Earn products—while positioning GHO as a competitive and attractive alternative to existing stablecoins.

The GHO Earn Campaign offers the following features:

• sGHO-style Airdrop Model: A proxy system that tracks GHO balances on participating CEXs and rewards users on a weekly basis, mimicking the on-chain sGHO model.
• Incentives Distribution: Rewards will be distributed based on GHO balances held in eligible accounts on partner exchanges. Users will receive a weekly airdrop direct to their balance to create a savings account user experience.

This model encourages sustained holding of GHO while aligning with familiar incentive mechanisms used in CEX environments.

By offering a competitive yield that accelerates GHO's broad adoption, we are able to advocate for further integrations beyond Spot trading and Earn Platforms. Through offering greater utility such as Margin trading and Perpertuals, we expect to achieve higher retention rates when rewards are reduced.

Market Maker

TokenLogic is working with Market Makers to provide Spot trading liquidity across various CEXs. Each potential partner was recommended by multiple CEXs and upon a thorough review, a select few have been short listed to those with a proven track record for providing stablecoin Spot market liquidity.

TokenLogic will continue to work with various Market Makers to source and provide liquidity. With a preference for Market Makers that provide their own inventory, the Aave DAO is likely to provide working capital to sustain the CEX. A combination of trading firms and Market Makers will likely be engaged in varying capacity with the goal to ensure peg stability and sufficient liquidity enabling broader integration across the CEX platforms.

Objectives

Listing GHO on centralized exchanges expands its reach to a broader user base and creates a new distribution channel, enabling the Aave DAO to accelerate adoption and increase market presence.

The goal of this initiative is to deliver the following objectives over a 4 to 6 month period:

• $150 million new GHO supply;
• GHO Spot trading pairs;
• Earn platform integration;
• Margin trading; and,
• Collateral status for multi-asset perpetual trading;

@TokenLogic will engage a Market Maker to provide Spot liquidity sufficient to enable GHO to be included as collateral on Multi-asset perpetual positions. For reference USDtb was able to acheive such status within a few weeks of listing on ByBit.

Revenue

With USDT/GHO Spot trading liquidity enabling users to swap USDT for GHO, the USDT will be received and used to Mint GHO via the stataUSDT GSM. This USDT is then deposited into Aave v3 where it will earn the deposit rate and provide the DAO with additional revenue.

The Aave DAO generates revenue via the deposit rate on Aave Protocol plus the Reserve Factor. However, to amplify the adoption of GHO, the Earn program is to provide a yield exceeding the Aave deposit rate to attract meaningful growth in line with the objectives mentioned above. Therefore the program is expected to incur a cost during the bootstrapping phase which will be recovered during the later phases as it transitions into a sustainable integration.

Funding

The Earn program's yield is expected to exceed the Aave Protocol deposit rate and be competitive compared to other offerings in the market.

In administering the program, GHO holders will received GHO airdrop to them each week. Users receive a fixed yield that is adjusted on a weekly cadence to be loosely correlated with the broader market. ie: Week 1 could 6% and Week 2 6.25%. However, to limit budget exposure there is a TVL target, once exceeded the yield is diluted to avoid over spend.

Whilst Aave generates revenue from the GSMs and in parallel distributes GHO to CEX users, there are both timing considerations and difference in yield to consider. By creating a separate budget, this streamlines the operational burden for sustaining the program. Revenue generated by the GSMs will accumulate independent of the rewards being distributed.

The true cost of the program is the difference between revenue generated from the new GHO circulating supply and the rewards distributed to bootstrap GHO across the CEXs. TokenLogic will provide a dashboard to track overall spend and revenue generated from activities linked to this program.

Specification

To execute this initiative, we are requesting a funding allocation of 5M GHO from the DAO treasury to be used for:

• Weekly reward distribution (denominated in GHO or an equivalent stable asset).
• Technical integration and CEX collaboration costs.
• Marketing support to promote GHO onboarding and listings.

Proposed budget: 5M GHO over 4 to 6 Month period

The initial Allowance is for 5M GHO from Prime instance.

• Asset: aEthLidoGHO 0x18eFE565A5373f430e2F809b97De30335B3ad96A
• Amount: 5M
• Spender: AFC 0x22740deBa78d5a0c24C58C740e3715ec29de1bFa
• Method: approve() aEthLidoGHO on the Aave Collector contract to the AFC address.

To facilitate the program, the following assets are to be swapped to GHO.

Ethereum	Amount	Swap
USDT	2.50M	GHO
USDC	2.50M	GHO

Next Steps

1. Gather feedback from the community.
2. If consensus is reached on this ARFC, escalate this proposal to the Snapshot stage.
3. If Snapshot outcome is YAE, an AIP will implement this proposal.

Disclaimer

TokenLogic does not receive any payment for this proposal.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.