[ARFC] Core & Base - BTC Correlated Asset Update


title: [ARFC] Core & Base - BTC Correlated Asset Update
author: @TokenLogic
created: 2025-02-04


Summary

This proposal focuses curating LBTC for growth across Core and Base instances of Aave v3. Several initiatives are included:

  • Onboard LBTC on Base;
  • Create LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Core instance;
  • Create LBTC/fBTC eMode on Core instance;
    • Create LBTC/tBTC eMode on Core instance;
  • Create LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Base instance; and;
  • Amend cbBTC Borrow Rate.

Motivation

Lombard has demonstrated consistent growth, surpassing $1.8B in TVL, and has established itself as the leading BTC LST in the market. Its initial onboarding, coupled with the first liquid eMode alongside WBTC, quickly reached supply caps, highlighting strong demand for leverage loops between LBTC and BTC wrappers.

On Aave’s Core instance, cbBTC is the second-largest BTC wrapper. While it experienced strong growth post-listing, the absence of borrowing opportunities has limited its potential. The onboarding of LBTC introduces a new growth avenue for both LBTC, cbBTC, tBTC and fBTC. The new liquid eModes will allow users to loop LBTC exposure while offering attractive deposit rates for cbBTC and fBTC holders, incentivizing them to supply liquidity and fuelling this strategy.

Specifically to fBTC, a points program will be applied to users who deposit fBTC and also, to different users who borrow fBTC. Leveraging LBTC/fBTC is expected to stimulate demand for fBTC.

To support this growth strategy, the optimal utilization rate (Uoptimal) for cbBTC and fBTC should be increased from 45% to 80%, aligning them with wBTC. The initial Uoptimal was set when cbBTC had minimal borrowing demand, but the introduction of this liquid eMode is expected to significantly boost cbBTC borrowing activity, warranting this adjustment. For fBTC, not yet listed, the opportunity between Lombard and Ignition developed relatively recently.

Additionally, Base has emerged as the second-largest platform for cbBTC growth. Onboarding LBTC to Base will replicate this successful dynamic, with LBTC users leveraging existing cbBTC liquidity. For Lombard, Base is already the third-largest ecosystem (after Mainnet and Berachain), with over $117M in TVL, making it an ideal environment to extend this growth strategy.

Specification

Updated to include feedback from Risk Service Providers.

Core Instance

Amend cbBTC Borrow rate Uoptimal

Description Current Proposed Change
Borrow Rate Uoptimal 45% 80% +35%
Slope2 300% 60% -240%
Reserve Factor 20% 50% +30%

Amend Proposed fBTC Borrow rate Uoptimal

Description Current Proposed Change
Borrow Rate Uoptimal 45% 80% +35%
Slope2 300% 60% -240%

Amend Proposed tBTC Borrow rate Uoptimal

Description Current Proposed Change
Borrow Rate Uoptimal 45% 80% +35%
Slope2 300% 60% -240%
Reserve Factor 20% 50% +30%

Liquid E-modes

Parameters Value Value
Asset LBTC wBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
Max LTV 84% -
Liquidation Threshold 86% -
Liquidation Bonus 3.00% -
Parameters Value Value
Asset LBTC cbBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
Max LTV 84% -
Liquidation Threshold 86% -
Liquidation Bonus 3.00% -
Parameters Value Value
Asset LBTC tBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
Max LTV 84% -
Liquidation Threshold 86% -
Liquidation Bonus 3.00% -
Parameters Value Value
Asset LBTC fBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
Max LTV 84% -
Liquidation Threshold 86% -
Liquidation Bonus 3.00% -

Note: This ARFC assumes fBTC has already been listed on Aave by the time the Snapshot vote has finished. If not, the proposed changes shall feature in the AIP that onboards fBTC to Aave Core instance

Base Instance

Onboarding of LBTC

Parameters Value
Network Base
Isolation mode No
Borrowable No
Collateral enabled Yes
Supply Cap 400
Borrow Cap -
Debt Ceiling -
LTV 68%
LT 73%
Liquidation Bonus 8.5%
Liquidation Protocol Fee 10%
Variable Base -
Variable Slope1 -
Variable Slope2 -
Uoptimal -
Reserve Factor -
Stable Borrowing Disabled
Flashloanable Yes
Siloed Borrowing No
Borrowed in Isolation No

Liquid E-modes

Parameters Value Value
Asset LBTC cbBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
Max LTV 82% -
Liquidation Threshold 84% -
Liquidation Bonus 3.00% -

Amend cbBTC Borrow rate Uoptimal

Description Current Proposed Change
Borrow Rate Uoptimal 45% 80% +35%
Slope2 300% 60% -240%
Reserve Factor 20% 50% +30%

Disclosure

TokenLogic does not receive any payment for this proposal.

Next Steps

  1. Gather feedback from the community.
  2. If consensus is reached on this ARFC, escalate this proposal to the Snapshot stage.
  3. If Snapshot outcome is YAE, escalate this proposal to the AIP stage.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.

1 Like

Summary

LlamaRisk supports the initiative; however, we propose slightly adjusted parameters for LBTC onboarding on Base due to insufficient liquidity relative to the proposed requirements. We also recommend disabling LBTC borrowing on Base since there is no envisioned utility beyond shorting the asset. Regarding the uOptimal changes for cbBTC and fBTC, as well as the E-mode additions on both the Core and Base instances, we support these modifications.

Overall, the proposal aims to bolster the leveraged looping of LBTC against other BTC wrappers. LBTC holders currently receive points only - there is no redistribution of Babylon staking yield at this time. We believe the future native LBTC yield will generate a significantly larger demand. We previously published a complete review of LBTC for its onboarding on the Core instance.

LBTC on Core instance

The LBTC supply/borrow caps were recently increased from 800 to 1600, and the supply utilization quickly grew to 70% as of February 5th, 2025, indicating a strong demand from the community.


Source: ChaosLabs Community Analytics, February 5th, 2025

In the core instance, LBTC is primarily used as collateral against WBTC at 85%, followed by cbBTC at 9.5%. $70m out of $82m of all borrows against LBTC are made through the LBTC/WBTC E-mode, showing that leveraged looping is the main driver of borrowing demand. Adding cbBTC and fBTC (soon to be onboarded) will provide more BTC wrappers to borrow against LBTC for that use case.

LBTC on Base

Liquidity

Source: Kyberswap, February 5th, 2025

We found 172 LBTC ($16.5m) available within an 8.5% price impact on Base. Following our usual methodology, this would yield a supply cap of around 350 LBTC. Those figures are more than half of what is being proposed for the Base instance; therefore, we recommend decreasing those figures to align better with the available LBTC liquidity on Base.

We recommend disabling LBTC borrowing entirely, as its primary function will serve as collateral against other BTC wrappers for leveraged looping strategies. We support the proposed E-mode parameters, which align with the LBTC/WBTC E-mode configuration on the Core instance.

Access Controls (bridge infra)

Bridging transactions between Base and other networks requires the consortium’s approval, an off-chain federation organized by LombardFinance, and CCIP from Chainlink. LBTC can be minted from BTC and directly redeemed for BTC on Base.

Here are the main controlling wallets:

Here are the contracts related to the LBTC deployment on Base:

  • Bridge: Allows for the bridging of LBTC between Base and other chains. It is deployed behind a TransparentUpgradeableProxy and is owned by the LombardTimelock.
  • LBTC: The ERC20 token contract for LBTC. It is deployed behind a TransparentUpgradeableProxy contract from OpenZeppelin, is owned by Multisig A and is pausable by Multisig B.
  • LBTC Boring Vault: Restaking vault managed by EtherFi.
  • ConsortiumGovernance: Responsible for verifying signatures made by the consortium. Deployed behind a TransparentUpgradeableProxy contract from OpenZeppelin, it is owned by LombardTimelock.
  • BasculeDrawbridge: Independently verify the correctness of BTC deposits and withdrawals into and from LombardFinance. It is owned by EOA A and is operated by Cubist.

The LBTC contract has multiple roles for which we could find the following assignment:

The BasculeDrawbridge contract has multiple roles for which we could find the following assignment:

  • DEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE is assigned to EOA A
  • DEPOSIT_REPORTER_ROLE is not assigned
  • PAUSER_ROLE is assigned to EOA B
  • VALIDATION_GUARDIAN_ROLE is assigned to EOA A
  • WITHDRAWAL_VALIDATOR_ROLE is assigned to the LBTC contract

Aave V3 Specific Parameters

For the onboarding of LBTC on Base, we propose half of the proposed supply cap, a 50% reserve factor (to align with LBTC on Core instance), and to disable the borrowing of LBTC. We agree with the other proposed parameters and E-modes.

Disclaimer

This review was independently prepared by LlamaRisk, a community-led non-profit decentralized organization funded in part by the Aave DAO. LlamaRisk is not directly affiliated with the protocol(s) reviewed in this assessment and did not receive any compensation from the protocol(s) or their affiliated entities for this work.

The information provided should not be construed as legal, financial, tax, or professional advice.

1 Like

Summary

Chaos Labs supports the following changes of this proposal:

  • Onboard LBTC on Base;
  • Create LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Core instance;
  • Create LBTC/fBTC eMode on Core instance;
  • Create LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Base instance;
  • Amend cbBTC and fBTC Borrow Rate.

However, we recommend the adoption of slightly more conservative parameters for the Base Instance, and introduce the following changes:

  • Introduce tBTC as a viable debt asset within LBTC-collateralized eMode configurations.
  • Amend cbBTC, fBTC and tBTC Slope 2
  • Increase cbBTC, fBTC and tBTC Reserve Factor

This post includes an analysis of the expected outcome of the proposed changes.

Motivation

Onboard LBTC

As an in-depth technical coverage of LBTC has been previously provided in conjunction with its asset listing proposal on the Ethereum Core instance, we refer to the analysis listed here. In the following paragraphs, we cover the differences between the assets in the Ethereum chain and their base-bridged counterparts.

Mint/Redeem

Minting LBTC involves depositing BTC into Lombard, which then gets staked with Babylon. The deposit is verified by the Security Consortium, and once approved, LBTC is minted on Ethereum. Redeeming requires burning LBTC, which triggers the unstaking of BTC from Babylon. The process includes a 7-day withdrawal period and a 0.0001 LBTC Network Security Fee. Additional options include depositing LBTC into the Lombard DeFi Vault, which has no deposit fees but carries a 1.5% annual management fee and a three-day withdrawal processing period.

Slashing

Slashing only occurs if over one-third of the total stake signs conflicting blocks, significantly reducing risk. Validators are not slashed for being offline, unlike Ethereum, and slashing applies only if they actively vote on duplicated blocks. The initial slashing rate is 10% but can be adjusted via network consensus. Additionally, slashed funds may be timelocked rather than fully burned, further mitigating losses.

Market Cap and Liquidity

Since its inception, LBTC’s supply and corresponding TVL have shown steady growth. Currently, the supply of LBTC on Base has reached 1,259, representing 6.5% of the total TVL.

The DEX Liquidity of LBTC has demonstrated resilience over the last three months, which was shortly after the deployment. It is only slightly declining from a peak of $40M TVL, largely caused by the decline in BTC’s price. The current DEX liquidity is composed largely of BTC, representing $23M of buy liquidity for the asset.

Volatility

LBTC on base has demonstrated remarkable stability against cbBTC in its biggest Aerodrome pool, suggesting an efficient execution of liquidations during times of high market volatility.

Relative to BTC, LBTC has exhibited a 7.66% daily annualized volatility. This has not decreased in the last 30 days, measuring at 9.85%.

Bridging

LBTC adopts Chainlink CCIP Bridge technology to transfer assets between chains. The bridge between Base and Ethereum takes roughly one hour to finalize a transaction. The fast bridging speed enabled the liquidity pools to be arbitraged efficiently between the two chains, effectively enhancing the stability and liquidity available.

Supply and Borrow Cap

Following Chaos Labs’ methodology for initial caps, which considers available DEX liquidity and the asset’s volatility, we recommend setting an initial supply cap of 400 LBTC. Additionally, given the lack of use cases for borrowing LBTC and yield-bearing assets and the risks posed by them, as outlined here, we recommend setting LBTC as non-borrowable.

LT, LTV, and Liquidation Bonus

While the asset has demonstrated strong peg adherence and reliable liquidity, we recommend adopting a slightly lower LT and LTV due to the additional risk posed by bridging speed and a more limited on-chain supply. Hence, we recommend adopting 73% and 68%, respectively.

Recommendation

Based on this, we propose the following parameters:

Parameters Value
Network Base
Isolation mode No
Borrowable No
Collateral enabled Yes
Supply Cap 400
Borrow Cap -
Debt Ceiling -
LTV 68%
LT 73%
Liquidation Bonus 8.5%
Liquidation Protocol Fee 10%
Variable Base -
Variable Slope1 -
Variable Slope2 -
Uoptimal -
Reserve Factor -
Stable Borrowing Disabled
Flashloanable Yes
Siloed Borrowing No
Borrowed in Isolation No

E-Modes

Thanks to the high demand for BTC-correlated assets as borrow demand against LBTC collateral, we support all of the proposed E-Modes. Additionally, the separation of liquid E-Modes on the Ethereum Core instance allows for finer granularity in order to better adapt the risk parameters to the asset in the future. We further recommend the creation of an additional LBTC/tBTC Liquid E-Mode on Ethereum with parameters aligned to the rest of the E-Modes proposed in this post.

However, for LBTC on Base, we take a slightly more conservative approach by lowering the LT and LTV, given the aforementioned reasons. Additionally, we note that the proposed LBTC/WBTC E-mode on the Ethereum Core instance already exists with the proposed parameters.

Based on this, we propose the following parameters:

Ethereum Core Instance:

Parameter Value Value
Asset LBTC fBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
LTV 84.00% -
LT 86.00% -
Liquidation Penalty 3.00% -
Parameter Value Value
Asset LBTC cbBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
LTV 84.00% -
LT 86.00% -
Liquidation Penalty 3.00% -
Parameter Value Value
Asset LBTC tBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
LTV 84.00% -
LT 86.00% -
Liquidation Penalty 3.00% -

Base Instance:

Parameter Value Value
Asset LBTC cbBTC
Collateral Yes No
Borrowable No Yes
LTV 82.00% -
LT 84.00% -
Liquidation Penalty 3.00% -

Amend Interest Rates

We strongly support the initiative to amend cbBTC and fBTC Uoptimal, and we recommend including tBTC in this parameter change, as it enhances market efficiency and is a key step toward establishing the BTC-correlated E-Mode.

In accordance with such a change, we recommend amending the Slope 2 from 300% down to 60% to minimize artificial rate volatility.

We further recommend increasing the Reserve Factors, as detailed in this recommendation for WBTC. This is expected to increase the DAO revenue without negatively affecting the supply of assets.

As such, we propose the following parameters:

Instance Asset Parameter Current Proposed
Ethereum Core cbBTC UOptimal 45% 80%
Base Core cbBTC UOptimal 45% 80%
Ethereum Core fBTC UOptimal 45% 80%
Ethereum Core tBTC UOptimal 45% 80%
Ethereum Core cbBTC Slope2 300% 60%
Base Core cbBTC Slope2 300% 60%
Ethereum Core fBTC Slope2 300% 60%
Ethereum Core tBTC Slope2 300% 60%
Ethereum Core cbBTC Reserve Factor 20% 50%
Base Core cbBTC Reserve Factor 20% 50%
Ethereum Core tBTC Reserve Factor 20% 50%

Disclaimer

Chaos Labs has not been compensated by any third party for publishing this recommendation.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0

1 Like

The forum post has been updated to incorporate the feedback above.

Snapshot vote: here

Start: Feb 14, 2025 · 10:40 PM
End: Feb 17, 2025 · 10:40 PM

Thank you in advance for participating in the vote.

As Michigan Blockchain, we support onboarding LBTC on Base and creating LBTC/cbBTC eMode, LBTC/fBTC eMode, LBTC/tBTC eMode on Core instance and LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Base instance. Since LBTC is a Bitcoin liquid staked token, one of the main usages of this token in DeFi is providing this asset as collateral and borrowing correlated BTC assets against it as a yield farming strategy. In Aave, the eMode allows this looping strategy to a greater extent, as for example, the max LTV of LBTC in Core Market is just 70%, while the eMode allows a max LTV of 84% for borrowing correlated assets like WBTC and cbBTC. Since these are correlated assets, there isn’t an extensive risk of liquidation, so a greater max LTV leads to greater capital efficiency. Currently, 90% of all borrows against LBTC are made through the LBTC/WBTC eMode, which highlights how leveraged looping is the main driver of borrowing demand. That is why we are in favor of creating BTC/cbBTC eMode, LBTC/fBTC eMode, LBTC/tBTC eMode on Core instance and LBTC/cbBTC eMode on Base instance.

Currently, LBTC is not available in the Base Instance. We support onboarding LBTC on Base because we believe that this looping strategy will increase cbBTC’s utilization rate in borrowing. Currently, 95% of the borrowing against cbBTC on Base market is USDC, so unfortunately, the only use case of providing cbBTC currently as collateral is just having a leveraged BTC position. If LBTC is onboarded on the Base Instance, cbBTC holders can be exposed to other strategies like leveraged looping by providing LBTC as collateral and borrowing cbBTC against it to gain yield.
-Kerem Dillice and nsks

A communication involving the listing of LBTC on Aave v3 Base (not affecting Core).

In what concerns LBTC on Base, there is no type of risk, and the asset will be unfrozen after passing a governance proposal properly segregating the eModes.

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