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Curators may now create custom lending markets by using this distinctive, institutional-grade lending infrastructure . Over the course of seven months, Gearbox users have created $2.8 billion in trading volume across Ethereum DEXs. Gearbox Protocol, which has a USDC vault curated by Re7 Labs, has debuted on Etherlink. The deployment uses treasury-backed tokens like mTBILL, mBASIS, and mRe7YIELD to provide institutional-grade strategies to the Tezos Layer 2.

As DeFi’s credit layer, Gearbox links customers looking for composable leverage across return-generating options with passive liquidity providers. Curators may now create custom lending markets by using this distinctive, institutional-grade lending infrastructure thanks to the introduction of permissionless.

“We’ve been looking for the right L2 to expand Gearbox Permissionless, and Etherlink’s performance metrics and ecosystem convinced us,” said Mikhail Lazarev, Founder and CTO at Gearbox Protocol. “When you can get soft confirmations in under 500ms with fees that are negligible, combined with well-known DeFi protocols, it opens up entirely new possibilities for capital efficiency in leveraged strategies.”

As a vault curator, Re7 Labs contributes substantial experience, overseeing more than 700 million TVL over more than 100 pools on 14 blockchains. Re7, one of the leading DeFi curators in the world, uses unique risk management frameworks to generate profits. In order to increase underlying returns while upholding cautious risk criteria, the vault technique loops return-bearing tokens against USDC.

Evgeny Gokhberg, Managing Partner at Re7 Capital, said: “Etherlink’s infrastructure and Gearbox’s credit layer give us the ideal foundation to scale our strategies. We’re bringing institutional-grade yield to a new audience with the same discipline and risk management we apply across $1B+ in DeFi capital.”

Incentives from Apple Farm Season 2 and GEAR token payouts from the Gearbox DAO will also help the vault. Over the course of seven months, Gearbox users have created $2.8 billion in trading volume across Ethereum DEXs, and the protocol’s TVL increased by 230% to $400 million in H1 2025.

“Having Gearbox launch on Etherlink was a big win for us,” said Anthony Hayot, Head of DeFi Adoption at Nomadic Labs. “They bring serious institutional credibility, four years, zero hacks, $400 million TVL, and a product that will give real value to Etherlink users.”

For more over four years, Gearbox has had a perfect security record with no vulnerabilities or bad debt. The protocol operates under stringent governance mechanisms with 24-hour timelocks for vault parameter changes, and it has made large investments in audits by respectable firms.

Following the successful launch of Apple Farm Season 2 with over $3 million in incentives, the integration of Curve Finance to enable low-slippage stablecoin swaps, the launch of Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC) by Lombard Finance, and a 68.4% TVL increase in July that placed Etherlink among the fastest-rising Layer 2s, the Gearbox deployment comes after a period of significant momentum for Etherlink.

Through Credit Accounts and carefully chosen vaults overseen by knowledgeable asset managers, the decentralized credit layer known as Gearbox Protocol makes it possible to use composable leverage across DeFi possibilities.

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Somnia is integrating with Gearbox Protocol to enable SOMI and USDC markets, giving users access to leveraged DeFi strategies and credit accounts on the highest-performance EVM blockchain. Gearbox will also participate in the Somnia Liquidity Points program, meaning early users can earn rewards while exploring these new leverage capabilities.

Gearbox Protocol has established itself as a leader in composable leverage, processing over $1.5 billion in assets through its curator network. Unlike traditional leverage platforms that confine users to internal order books, Gearbox operates as a credit layer that allows borrowed capital to flow across the broader DeFi ecosystem.

With this integration, SOMI holders will have the option of using Gearbox’s credit accounts, where users can deposit SOMI as collateral and borrow against it to execute leveraged strategies across DeFi protocols. This brings new utility to the SOMI token and gives holders additional opportunities for putting their assets to work.

With Gearbox Protocol, Somniacs can maintain exposure to SOMI while accessing liquidity to trade, provide liquidity, or deploy capital across multiple protocols at the same time. The credit account model allows these operations to happen through a single interface rather than requiring users to manage separate positions across different platforms.

Gearbox handles the complexity of margin management, liquidation thresholds, and position monitoring. Users interact with a credit account that automatically manages collateral ratios and exposure limits based on the assets they’ve deposited. For someone holding SOMI who wants to participate in a yield opportunity on another protocol, this removes the friction of unwinding positions or fragmenting capital across multiple wallets.

Gearbox has an established user base that understands leverage, knows how to manage risk, and actively seeks opportunities to deploy capital efficiently. The integration creates a pathway for these DeFi users to discover Somnia through a familiar interface. Someone using Gearbox on another chain can now access SOMI and USDC markets, start building positions, and gradually explore what else exists in the ecosystem.

Leveraged DeFi strategies generate massive volumes of onchain activity. Many leverage protocols struggle with this volume because they’re built on infrastructure where every action carries meaningful latency and cost.

Somnia’s architecture changes this calculus. When a protocol can process over 1 million transactions per second with sub-second finality and sub-cent fees, the constraints that normally limit leveraged strategies start to disappear. Sophisticated trades that involve multiple steps, continuous rebalancing, or frequent position adjustments become viable in ways they aren’t on slower chains.

This applies to automated strategies that might rebalance dozens of times per day, structured products that need to adjust positions based on real-time data feeds, or credit protocols that need to perform constant health checks across thousands of positions. Gearbox strategies that would be prohibitively expensive to run elsewhere become practical on Somnia because the infrastructure can handle the transaction volume these operations generate.

Beyond individual users deploying leverage, Gearbox functions as composable infrastructure that ecosystem projects can integrate without building their own credit systems.

This approach reduces development time and security risk. Credit systems are notoriously difficult to build safely because they involve managing other people’s money under volatile market conditions. By using Gearbox as infrastructure, projects get code that’s been stress-tested across multiple market cycles rather than building their own systems that might have undiscovered vulnerabilities.

For gaming specifically, this opens new design space. A battle royale game could let players leverage their token holdings to enter higher-stakes tournaments. A strategy game could enable borrowing against in-game assets to fund expansion. A prediction market could offer leveraged positions on match outcomes. These features would typically require extensive DeFi expertise to implement safely, but Gearbox makes them accessible to game developers who understand their players but don’t necessarily understand the complexities of DeFi.

Somnia will provide $5 million in initial liquidity to activate the SOMI and USDC markets, giving users sufficient depth to execute strategies without excessive slippage.

This initial liquidity serves as a foundation rather than a permanent commitment. As users deploy capital and market makers add liquidity, the markets will develop their own depth and trading activity. The goal is to reach a point where the markets are self-sustaining, with enough participants that the initial bootstrap capital becomes a small fraction of total liquidity.

Invariant, a leading multichain AMM DEX, will act as a curator, setting parameters like collateral ratios, borrowing limits, and risk thresholds. These parameters determine how much users can leverage, which assets can serve as collateral, and when positions face liquidation. Getting these settings right is important because overly conservative parameters limit utility while overly aggressive ones create systemic risk.

Gearbox’s participation in the Somnia Liquidity Points program means users who provide liquidity or engage with the new markets can earn rewards. Adding Gearbox to the mix gives users another avenue to accumulate points while accessing professional-grade leverage infrastructure.

If you haven’t joined the Liquidity Points program yet, now is the time. Visit the Somnia Liquidity Points dashboard to connect your wallet, explore eligible pools, and start earning.

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