[Temp Check] Aave V3 MVP Deployment on Neon EVM Mainnet

As a user of Aave, I must express my strong opposition to this proposal, and here are my reasons for it. Firstly, before any Aave deployment is considered, it’s crucial for the Neon team to enhance their Total Value Locked (TVL). Currently, as per DeFillama, their TVL is at a modest $1.53M since their mainnet launch in July 2023, and there are only four dApps deployed on it. Notably, Moraswap, which holds the largest TVL share, seems to be a straightforward fork of Uniswap V2. Aave traditionally adopts a very cautious stance in deploying on new chains, and I believe our resources would be better allocated elsewhere.

Secondly, Neon’s infrastructure appears to be inadequate. The Chainlink official documents do not mention any Data feeds for Neon. In terms of Safe, they are utilizing a friendly fork, and their bridging solution currently revolves around DeBridge, with no immediate plans to integrate Wormhole or Axelar. Furthermore, the implementation of DeBridge itself is, to my understanding, incomplete. Adding to this, a look at their Discord suggests that Neon’s EVM is dealing with ongoing technical and performance issues, with no resolution expected for another one to two months.

Thirdly, the track record of Neon’s founding team is a point of concern. An article on Forklog, in Russian, discusses how these founders had to shut down a previous project due to the absence of a product-market fit: Блокчейн-соцсеть Commun закрылась из-за отсутствия пользователей. This history raises fears that Neon might face a similar fate, especially considering the ongoing complaints within the Neon Discord community about the founders’ lack of communication, their passive issue resolution, and a general lack of transparency. These factors make me skeptical about the team’s capabilities as highlighted on their website (https://neon-labs.org/).

I recommend that the Aave community adopt a ‘wait and watch’ approach towards Neon and closely observe how their founding team handles issue resolution and transparent communication. As Aave, our focus should be on deploying on more established chains where we can better allocate our efforts. Personally, I am in favor of deploying directly on Solana rather than on Neon EVM. While I acknowledge that deploying on another L1 chain has its risks, Solana is a more mature platform with most of the necessary infrastructural elements in place. In contrast, Neon has significant room for improvement in terms of increasing its Total Value Locked (TVL), enhancing its infrastructure, and improving transparency.

2 Likes