Aave, a decentralized liquidity protocol, has deployed its V3 protocol on Optimistic rollup scaling protocol Metis. This deployment allows for a range of DeFi features and products to be brought to the Metis ecosystem. Aave’s community voted in favor of a proposal deploying on zero-knowledge (zk) proof EVM zkSync, paving the way for the DeFi protocol to tap into the powerful performance improvements delivered by the scaling infrastructure.
Ethereum ecosystem participants are developing a number of different zk-proof-powered layer-2 protocols, providing the wider space with a choice of infrastructure to scale their respective platforms. While Aave has yet to deploy on zkSync Era, it has announced its deployment on Metis.
The latest version of Aave’s protocol is expected to benefit users across both protocols, with Metis users set to benefit from the provision of DeFi borrowing and lending services. The team from Metis highlighted a number of ways in which users of its ecosystem can benefit from Aave’s deployment. This includes borrowing assets with less collateral with Aave High-Efficiency mode, improved risk management with supply and borrow caps, as well as siloed borrowing to reduce exposure to potential market contagion. Aave’s Isolation mode also increases the pool of collateral assets, its Cross-Chain Portals provide access to wider DeFi solutions, and its Gas Optimization reduces transaction fees.
Optimistic rollups process transactions off-chain before publishing data on-chain, with a time frame for network participants to challenge the validity of transaction data. This is different from zk-rollups, which execute transactions off-chain and submit large batches on-chain using a single proof of validity, with no need for the network to validate the data.
Aave is renowned in the DeFi space, with over $5.5 billion in total value locked in the protocol. V3 of the DeFi liquidity protocol was deployed on Ethereum’s mainnet in January 2023, following its launch on a number of Ethereum layer-2 protocols, including Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon.
Other prominent DeFi players, such as 1inch Network and Uniswap token holders, have also opted for zk-proof protocols to deploy their aggregation and limit order protocols. The deployment of Aave on Metis is expected to bring a range of DeFi features and products to the Metis ecosystem, which will benefit users across both protocols.