Hassan Maishera
Gearbox Protocol announced on Thursday, August 21, that it has launched on Etherlink with a USDC vault curated by Re7 Labs.
In a press release shared with Cryptowisser, the team said this deployment introduces institutional-grade strategies to the Tezos Layer 2, through treasury-backed tokens including mTBILL, mBASIS, and mRe7YIELD.
Gearbox serves as the credit layer of DeFi, connecting passive liquidity providers with users seeking composable leverage across return-generating opportunities. The launch of permissionless enables curators to utilise this unique, institutional-grade lending infrastructure to set up bespoke lending markets.
While commenting on this launch, Mikhail Lazarev, Founder and CTO at Gearbox Protocol, stated that,
"We've been looking for the right L2 to expand Gearbox Permissionless, and Etherlink's performance metrics and ecosystem convinced us. 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.”
Gearbox Protocol added that Re7 Labs brings significant expertise as a vault curator, managing over $700 million TVL across 100+ pools on 14 blockchains. The vault strategy focuses on looping return-bearing tokens against USDC to boost underlying returns while maintaining conservative risk parameters.
Evgeny Gokhberg, Managing Partner at Re7 Capital, stated that,
"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."
According to Gearbox, the vault will also benefit from Apple Farm Season 2 incentives combined with GEAR token distributions from the Gearbox DAO. Gearbox users have generated $2.8 billion in trading volume across Ethereum DEXs over seven months, while the protocol's TVL has grown 230% in H1 2025 to $400 million.
Anthony Hayot, Head of DeFi Adoption at Nomadic Labs, added that,
"Having Gearbox launch on Etherlink was a big win for us. They bring serious institutional credibility, four years, zero hacks, $400 million TVL, and a product that will give real value to Etherlink users."
This latest development comes after a period of significant momentum for Etherlink, including the successful launch of Apple Farm Season 2 with over $3 million in incentives, the integration of Curve Finance enabling low-slippage stablecoin swaps, Lombard Finance's introduction of Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC), and a 68.4% TVL increase in July that positioned Etherlink among the fastest-rising Layer 2s.
Gearbox Protocol is a decentralized credit layer enabling composable leverage across DeFi opportunities through Credit Accounts and curated vaults managed by specialized asset managers.
Meanwhile, Re7 Labs is the innovation arm of Re7 Capital - a DeFi-centric investment firm specialising in DeFi yield and liquid alpha strategies as well as on-chain vault management. With 4 years of consistent positive track record, Re7 is one of the most active DeFi liquidity providers globally, currently overseeing ~$1B AUM. Launched just over a year ago, Re7 Labs is managing over $700m TVL across 14 blockchains, specializing in DeFi yield strategies and serving as one of the top five DeFi curators globally.
Finally, Etherlink is an EVM-compatible Layer 2 blockchain powered by Tezos Smart Rollups technology. It empowers developers to smoothly deploy any EVM codebase and migrate users and assets from Ethereum and other interoperable chains, enabling seamless interaction and asset transfers across different networks.
