Aave launches V3 lending on Monad with $15 M incentives

The decentralized finance lending protocol Aave has expanded its multichain presence by launching its V3 markets on the Monad blockchain, introducing a major borrowing and lending venue to the network. The deployment, announced on Thursday, July 2, 2026, supports 12 assets at launch, including the stablecoins USDT, USDC, and Aave's own GHO, as well as wrapped assets like WETH, wstETH, and cbBTC.

This marks Aave's first deployment to feature Chainlink Smart Value Recapture from day one, a mechanism that redirects a portion of the value generated from loan liquidations back to the Aave protocol itself. The move provides Monad users with an established lending framework and is supported by a substantial incentive package designed to accelerate early adoption.

According to governance documents, the Monad Foundation has committed $15 million in incentives over the first 12 months following activation. The foundation also agreed to acquire and retain $10 million worth of GHO for more than six months. The Aave DAO committed an additional 500,000 GHO in incentives to support onboarding. The deployment is strategically significant for Monad, a layer-1 network compatible with Ethereum's...