Aave deploys V3 on Ethereum after 10 months of testing on other networks

Published at: Jan. 27, 2023

The third version of crypto lending app Aave has now been deployed to Ethereum for the first time, according to a Jan. 27 tweet thread from the Aave team. “Aave V3” was originally released in March 2022, and it was deployed on multiple Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchains shortly afterward. Until now, Ethereum users only had access to the app's older “V2” version.

Aave Protocol V3 is now live on the Ethereum market ”The most exciting aspect of V3 is its flexible design, which enables a variety of new risk mitigation features, and its improved capital efficiency & decentralized liquidity – all while reducing gas costs.” @StaniKulechov pic.twitter.com/QsSnnlhEMr

— Aave (@AaveAave) January 27, 2023

Aave V3 includes several features intended to help users save on fees and maximize the efficiency of users’ capital. For example, High Efficiency mode allows the borrower to avoid some of the app’s more stringent risk parameters if the borrower’s collateral is highly correlated with the asset being borrowed. Developers say this may be useful for borrowers of stablecoins or liquid staking derivatives.

In addition, the “isolation” feature allows certain, riskier assets to be used as collateral as long as they have their own debt ceiling and are only used to borrow stablecoins. Under the previous version, there was no way to limit what type of asset could be borrowed given a certain type of collateral. This meant that lower market-cap and illiquid coins often couldn’t be used as collateral.

V3 also includes a gas optimization algorithm that the developers say will reduce gas fees by 20% to 25%.

The code for V3 was published back in November 2021. In March 2022, the Aave DAO approved an initial vote to deploy the new version. Over the next few months, V3 was deployed to Avalanche (AVAX), Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP) and Polygon (MATIC). However, the Ethereum version of Aave has always had the most liquid and V3 was not available on it previously.

According to the official proposal, the initial launch only has seven coins. The vote to launch began on Jan. 23 and lasted for two days. After supporters won the vote, the execution of the proposal was able to move forward on Jan. 27. Less than 0.01% of DAO members voted against the proposal.

In November 2022, Aave changed its governance procedures after it was hit by a $60 million short attack that ultimately failed.