Lending/Borrowing Protocols

Morpho is a lending stack whose Blue markets freeze five parameters, not every decision around them. A DAO owner still has a narrow core role, vault curators and allocators govern separate strategy layers, and MORPHO grants voting power rather than ownership of loans or vault deposits.

Aave grew from ETHLend’s peer-to-peer orders into pooled, versioned lending markets. AAVE carries eligible onchain voting power and can still be staked in a legacy backstop, while DAO executors, Guardians and contract roles govern how approved changes and emergencies actually move.

JUST links JST governance to several distinct products. In 2025 JustLend began withdrawing its USDJ lending market; that is not proof that the whole JustStable issuance system closed in May. WJST enables voting, while deposits, collateral and operating keys follow separate rules.

GHO is Aave’s dollar-targeted debt asset, issued only through approved facilitators and their bucket limits. Borrower interest feeds the DAO treasury; GSM and CCIP widen liquidity routes, while governance, stewards and guardians retain distinct operational powers.

OHM began as a rebasing, bond-funded “reserve currency” whose `(3,3)` slogan rewarded coordinated staking. Olympus v3 now centers treasury-owned liquidity, gOHM governance, Cooler Loans and premium-based emissions. Treasury “backing” supports policy and lending; it is not a pro-rata redemption right for every OHM.

crvUSD is Curve DAO's Ethereum-native, overcollateralized dollar stablecoin. Borrowers mint it against approved collateral through market-specific Controllers and LLAMMAs; PegKeepers and a dynamic monetary policy defend the peg, while scrvUSD is a separate savings wrapper funded by a governed share of borrower fees.

Quantix Finance is the 2026 rebrand and chain migration of QuantixAI: Ethereum QAI became QFI on TRON, while the product narrative moved from AI trading access to delegate-managed credit. Current documents sharply limit what QFI holders receive.

Maple replaced MPL with SYRUP at 1:100, then closed conversion forever. SYRUP governs and may receive voted staking distributions; lenders instead own separate pool shares and bear loan losses.

Compound began as pooled Ethereum money markets, then split its design into v2 cToken pools and v3 single-base-asset Comet markets. COMP delegates steer upgrades and parameters through the Timelock, but the token itself is neither a deposit receipt nor a legal claim on reserves, interest or protocol income.

CAP is the fixed-10-billion governance token of Cap's covered-credit protocol, separate from redeemable cUSD and yield-bearing stcUSD. Current tokenomics phase in governance rights and direct protocol revenue to discretionary buybacks; neither statement gives each holder an automatic fee, reserve or company claim.

Kamino began by automating concentrated liquidity, then layered lending, managed vaults and leverage over separate Solana programs. KMNO has a fixed mint and seasonal distribution machinery; staking can boost rewards and voting weight, while curators, Risk Council roles, market admins and live upgrade authorities still shape the products.

Felix feUSD is an overcollateralized debt token minted from collateral-specific Troves on HyperEVM and linked to HyperCore spot. Its dollar target rests on redemptions, liquidations and Stability Pools, while AdminController roles can change critical branch infrastructure.

CHIP began as the vote attached to a GPU-credit system, but its controls are split across ledgers and institutions. Arbitrum holds the ten-billion canonical supply, governor, timelock and sCHIP vault; Ethereum and Base carry bridge-minted representations. Governance can set credit policy, while blacklisting, pausing and upgrades still depend on privileged roles.

DOLA kept the same Ethereum token while Inverse Finance replaced the lending machinery around it after two 2022 oracle failures. Today FiRM creates most DOLA debt, while a USDS PSM and authorized Feds provide narrower supply routes.

Venus turned one shared BNB Chain lending market into a system of isolated pools, pause controls and governed repairs after repeated price, oracle and accounting failures.

Spark began as a Maker-backed lending market and grew into an allocator across DeFi, centralized venues and real-world assets. SPK adds voting and staking, but proposals pass through reviewers and Sky’s execution system, while Sky retains an emergency mint power.