Gearbox Protocol

Gearbox Protocol is a permissionless, composable leverage platform designed to enhance capital efficiency in decentralized finance (DeFi). It enables users to borrow assets with leverage and deploy them across multiple DeFi protocols such as Uniswap, Curve, Yearn, Lido, and more. The protocol introduces Credit Accounts—isolated smart contracts that hold borrowed assets and execute whitelisted actions—ensuring safety and risk isolation for both lenders and borrowers. This architecture allows users to engage in margin trading, leverage farming, arbitrage, and complex delta-neutral strategies without custody risks or derivative-based funding rates.

The protocol serves two main user groups: passive liquidity providers who deposit assets to earn yield without impermanent loss, and active traders or farmers who borrow these assets to amplify their positions with 4x or higher leverage. Gearbox does not maintain its own order book or trading environment; instead, it leverages liquidity and trading opportunities on third-party protocols, making the leverage fully composable and modular. This design allows other DeFi protocols to integrate Gearbox’s leverage as a backend service, enabling their users to access credit seamlessly.

Gearbox is community-driven and governed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), emphasizing non-custodial, transparent operations. Its V3 upgrade introduced features like multicall for complex transactions, smart routing, segmented pools, and integrations with major DeFi platforms. Developers can get started by opening Credit Accounts and using the protocol’s SDK and documentation to build custom leverage-enabled applications or integrate leverage as a service. Comprehensive docs and community support are available to facilitate onboarding and development.