Aave V3 is Now Live on Celo

Decentralized non-custodial liquidity protocol Aave V3 is now live on Celo, the Layer-2 that aims to enable fast, low-cost transactions for the real world.

According to the press release shared with Cryptonews, thanks to the integration, Celo’s builders and users globally can borrow, lend, and earn yield with “sub-cent” transaction costs.

This is in addition to the one-block finality and one-second transaction time following Celo’s migration to an Ethereum Layer 2 later this month, the team said.

Furthermore, the initial deployment supports collateral and borrowable assets CELO, USDT, and USDC. The latter also includes cUSD and cEUR. The partners may incorporate more assets in the future, including Celo’s native stablecoins.

2/ The world's largest liquidity protocol, @Aave allows users to supply, borrow, swap & stake. Aave users can now seamlessly transact w/ Celo-native assets:

Collateral → CELO, USDT & USDC
Borrowable → CELO, USDT, USDC, @MentoLabs' cEUR & cUSD

— Celo.eth 🦇 🌳 (@Celo) March 17, 2025

Notably, the move follows the Aave community’s support for bringing the protocol to the mobile-first ecosystem Celo.

“Celo was built to provide individuals and communities worldwide with accessible, efficient financial tools,” said Isha Varshney, Celo Foundation’s Head of Ecosystem. “Aave’s launch is a major step forward in delivering on this mission.”

Varshney added that the team will continue expanding DeFi accessibility worldwide.

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin praised the recent development of Celo Network. Specifically, he noted its recent growth, surpassing Tron in daily active addresses due to stablecoin use. Buterin said that “improving worldwide access to basic payments/finance has always been a key way that Ethereum can be good for the world and it’s great to see Celo getting traction.”

According to DeFiLlama, Celo has $72.02 million in total value locked in DeFi.

As for the CELO coin, it currently trades at $0.3445. It is down 1.2% in a day, 1% in a week, 24% in a month, and 70% in a year.

Also, it hit its all-time high of $9.82 in August 2021, falling 96% since. The coin’s current market capitalization is $194.85 million.

“Creating the Conditions of Prosperity for All”

According to Aave Labs Founder Stani Kulechov, the Aave deployment on Celo will “potentially bring a large community of new people into the Aave ecosystem.”

It could bring mobile-first users in emerging markets and connect real-world assets to DeFi. Also, it could accelerate the use of stablecoins for simple transactions, Kulechov argues.

The immediate benefits for Celo users include access to a DeFi lending protocol, boosted liquidity for the ecosystem, new yield-bearing avenues, and accelerated DeFi adoption in emerging markets.

This integration was deployed by @bgdlabs on behalf of Aave DAO, with risk analysis from @chaos_labs.@chainlink will provide secure and reliable price feeds.

— Aave (@aave) March 17, 2025

At the same time, Aave users gain access to Celo’s mobile-first user base, including emerging market retail users, expansion to Celo’s ecosystem, low transaction costs and fast settlements, and potential future integration with Celo’s stablecoins.

“Since its inception, the Celo ecosystem has provided users with tools including DeFi solutions designed to create the conditions of prosperity for all,” said Marek Olszewski, Celo co-founder and cLabs CEO.

He added that “Aave’s decentralized, non-custodial protocol is strongly aligned with this mission, serving as an entry point to crypto for millions of users throughout the world. Bringing Aave V3 to Celo accelerates our joint vision for a more equitable and sustainable digital economy.”

Meanwhile, in early March, Aave governance introduced a proposal to update its tokenomics. It focused on AAVE staking rewards, revenue redistribution, secondary liquidity management, and the deprecation of LEND.

Aave has $17.486 billion in total value locked, per DeFiLlama.

At the time of writing, it trades at $168.11. It’s down 2.8% in 24 hours, 13% in 7 days, and 35% in 30 days. It appreciated 44% in a year.

It hit its all-time high of $661.69 in May 2021, dropping 75% since. Its current market cap is $2.5 billion.