Aave has officially expanded its version 3 network to the Sonic mainnet, the blockchain platform announced on March 3.
The Aave (AAVE) v3 deploys on the Sonic (S) network follows a recent governance proposal aimed at bringing the decentralized finance protocol’s lending market to the network, previously known as Fantom.
Web3 platform and Aave contributor bgdlabs managed the deployment, while Chaos Labs and LlamaRisk conducted the risk assessment. According to the Aave team, on-chain finance and oracle platform Chainlink provides price feeds.
Aave’s expansion to Sonic
Sonic Labs launched its layer-1 mainnet in December 2024, the same month Aave DAO delegate Aave Chan introduced the v3-to-Sonic governance proposal. The AAVE community later approved the proposal, paving the way for the deployment.
Going live on the Sonic network marks Aave’s first expansion of the year, further strengthening its presence in the broader DeFi ecosystem. This deployment introduces borrowing and lending opportunities for Sonic users, who can now earn DeFi-related incentives on Aave.
According to an announcement on X, Aave and Sonic Labs are offering $15 million in S tokens and $800,000 in AAVE tokens as incentives for early adopters. Users can access these opportunities through an initial list of supported assets, including USDC, WETH, and wS.
Explaining the motivation for deploying v3 on Sonic, Aave Chain Initiative noted:
“Aave has deployed on multiple promising new L1 and L2 EVM networks and is often one of the largest protocols on these networks. Given the impressive history of the team building Sonic, and the innovations it promises, it represents a strong candidate for deployment of Aave V3. In addition, the fee monetization for apps has potential to be an additional income source for Aave.”
Sonic Labs co-founder Andre Cronje recently posited that Sonic “is the only chain where you get paid for the activity you create.”
Aave currently has a total value locked of more than $18.7 billion, with this slightly down on the peak of over $22 billion reached on December 14, 2024.
Since launching in 2018 on Ethereum, Aave has expanded across multiple networks. It has deployed on Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base, as well as BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Gnosis Chain.
