In 2025, the DeFi lending market witnessed a profound governance revolution, and Gearbox Protocol was undoubtedly the most eye-catching innovator in this transformation. As a protocol focused on on-chain leveraged trading and credit accounts, Gearbox achieved an astonishing 213% increase in TVL within just six months, soaring from $105 million to $329 million. Its Lido dedicated pool even became the largest ETH curated pool in the DeFi ecosystem. More notably, in August 2025, Gearbox passed the GIP-264 proposal, becoming the first mainstream protocol to fully transition to a Permissionless curator model, opening up a completely new direction for DeFi governance.
Gearbox's core innovations: credit accounts and combinable leverage
Since its launch in 2021, Gearbox Protocol has focused on providing DeFi users with composable leveraged trading infrastructure. Its core innovation lies in its unique "Credit Account" mechanism—users do not need to directly lend assets to their own wallets, but instead conduct leveraged trading within a smart contract account controlled by the protocol. This account can seamlessly interact with mainstream DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Curve, and Lido, while assets are always under the protocol's monitoring, effectively controlling risk through real-time collateral ratio monitoring and automatic liquidation mechanisms.
This design allows liquidity providers to earn lending interest with peace of mind, while traders can use leverage of up to 10x for strategic operations, achieving a perfect balance between security and flexibility. From a technical architecture perspective, Gearbox employs a modular design, supporting interaction with various DeFi protocols through an adapter system, demonstrating strong scalability. When support for new DeFi protocols is needed, only the corresponding adapter needs to be developed, without modifying the core contract, laying a solid foundation for rapid protocol iteration.
Permissionless Model: A Successful Practice of the Efficiency Revolution
In March 2025, Gearbox launched its revolutionary Permissionless mode, decentralizing market creation and risk management from the DAO to professional curators. This innovation significantly improves market responsiveness while maintaining protocol-level security. Curators can independently decide which asset pairs to create, set risk parameters, and deploy on which chains, while assuming the first loss through a staking mechanism to ensure alignment of interests. All operations are transparent and traceable on-chain, achieving an organic combination of efficiency and security.
The effects of this model were immediate. In just three months, Gearbox deployed 42 new markets across 5 networks, compared to only 41 markets deployed throughout the entire year of 2024. The average market launch cycle was shortened from the traditional 3 weeks to just 5 days, demonstrating astonishing execution efficiency. More importantly, the Permissionless model successfully attracted top institutional curators such as Maven11 Capital, Invariant Group, and Re7. These five curators collectively manage over $1.5 billion in assets, with four of them ranking among the top 15 DeFi curators, fully demonstrating institutional-level professionalism and market recognition.
Explosive Growth: Market Validation Behind the Data
Gearbox's market performance fully validates the success of the Permissionless model. From March to August 2025, the protocol's TVL achieved a growth rate of 213%, far exceeding the performance of mainstream protocols during the same period. The Lido dedicated pool performed particularly well, growing from $72 million to $296 million, becoming the largest ETH curated pool in the entire DeFi ecosystem. This pool allows users to leverage their stETH as collateral, enjoying Lido's staking rewards while amplifying returns through leverage, precisely meeting the market's strong demand for yield enhancement tools.
The multi-chain expansion strategy has also yielded significant results. Gearbox has activated deployment capabilities on 28 EVM chains, operating on 9 mainstream chains and successfully capturing early liquidity opportunities in emerging Layer 2 markets. On the Plasma chain, a pool curated by Invariant Group attracted over $80 million in TVL, becoming one of the chain's largest lending protocols. On the Etherlink chain, a pool curated by Re7 also accumulated over $17 million in funds. This ability to quickly respond to emerging markets has positioned Gearbox favorably in the face of fierce competition, capturing over $100 million in incremental TVL through multi-chain deployments.
A Complete Transformation: Proposal GIP-264 Opens a New Chapter
The adoption of Proposal GIP-264 in August 2025 marks a significant milestone in Gearbox's development. This proposal mandates a complete transition to a Permissionless model, making Gearbox the first mainstream DeFi protocol to fully adopt curator governance. This decision is based on substantial market validation—Permissionless pools already account for over 70% of total TVL and are growing at a rate far exceeding traditional DAO governance pools. To ensure a smooth transition, the protocol has introduced two new institutional-level curators, Maven11 and KPK, further enhancing the professionalism and diversity of the curator ecosystem.
This layered governance model, characterized by "decentralized protocol and professionalized market," preserves the openness and security of the protocol layer while delegating operational decision-making power for specific markets to more specialized and flexible teams. Core parameters of the protocol layer, such as liquidation thresholds, oracle selection, and security module design, remain controlled by the DAO, ensuring the decentralized nature of the infrastructure. Meanwhile, market layer curators can quickly respond to market demands, providing diverse risk-return options to meet the needs of everyone from conservative institutions to aggressive traders. This innovative model offers new possibilities for DeFi governance and lays a solid foundation for the long-term development of protocols.
Gearbox Protocol is redefining the possibilities of leveraged lending in DeFi through technological innovation, governance reform, and rapid execution. From credit account mechanisms to the permissionless curator model, from a 213% increase in TVL over six months to becoming the first mainstream protocol to undergo a complete transformation, every step Gearbox takes provides valuable experience and insights for the entire industry. With the continuous maturation of its curator ecosystem and the deepening of its multi-chain strategy, Gearbox is growing into an undeniable innovative force in the DeFi lending field.
