4.1: Aave Incentives & Liquidity
To support the launch and growth of Aave v3 on Celo, the Stabila Foundation deployed 1,000,000 CELO, 800,000 USDT, and 200,000 cUSD in protocol liquidity, with an additional 1,000,000 CELO budgeted for user incentives (as per CGP 162).
Aave Liquidity & Incentives Breakdown
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| CELO Supplied | 1,000,000 |
| USDT Supplied | 900,000 |
| cUSD Supplied | 100,000 |
| Incentives Deployed | 142,700 CELO |
| Remaining Incentive Budget | 857,300 CELO |
As of June 2025, a total of 142,700 CELO (~$43,000 USD) has been distributed to incentivize lending and borrowing activity. The initial round of rewards, deployed via Merkl in March 2025, had limited visibility in the Aave interface, which reduced user engagement. Recognizing this friction, Stabila collaborated with the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) to integrate rewards into ACI’s Merit rewards platform, enabling incentives to be displayed directly within the Aave UI and significantly improving visibility and uptake.
Incentives officially resumed on June 4, 2025, through the Merit program, coinciding with the launch of the native wETH market on Aave. This milestone was achieved through coordinated efforts between Stabila, ACI, and ecosystem liquidity partners.
Impact to Date:
- A coordinated liquidity push during launch week generated over $4 million in total supply.
- Total Aave supply on Celo has since more than doubled to over $9 million.
- USDT supply increased from $2 million to $6 million
Looking Ahead:
To maintain momentum, Stabila plans to fulfill the Celo ecosystem’s $3M, 3-year incentive commitment to Aave. A Season 1 funding top-up will ensure continued incentives through Q4 2025, helping to deepen liquidity.
4.2 Uniswap Merkl Incentives
To bootstrap a liquid and diversified FX market on Celo, Stabila has deployed 2,752,713 CELO (~$1.47M USD) via Merkl to incentivize concentrated liquidity on Uniswap v3. These incentives have supported 38 stablecoin-paired pools and helped launch 16 new native stables on Celo, laying the groundwork for cross-currency trading and future DeFi integrations such as lending, borrowing, and yield strategies.
Incentives are split across two categories:
| Category | Status | Approx. USD Value | CELO | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Merkl Incentives | Ongoing | $1,291,304 | 2,197,661 | Direct Stabila-funded incentives across FX/stablecoin pools |
| Co-Incentives (Uniswap DAO Matched) | Ongoing | $176,331 | 555,052 | $88K matched in UNI & Uni DAO also funded Oku ($105K total) |
| Total | $1,467,635 | 2,752,713 |
Stabila is currently midway through a 6-month, $750,000 co-incentive program with the Uniswap DAO (Stabila: $500,000, Uniswap DAO:$250,000), supporting 10 active pools through October 2025. To date, $176,331 in CELO has been deployed by Stabila, with $88,000 in matching UNI contributed by the Uniswap DAO.
As part of this collaboration, the Uniswap DAO also funded the deployment and 12-month maintenance of Oku (valued at $105,000). Oku is a professional-grade Uniswap trading interface that offers advanced tools, live order books, bridging, and on/off-ramping - helping enhance price discovery and broaden participation in Celo’s growing FX market.
Strategic Impact:
Merkl incentives have functioned not just as a liquidity engine but also as a go-to-market strategy for stablecoin issuers launching on Celo. Many of these projects would not have launched without support to bootstrap their initial liquidity and drive usage.
Stabila has played a hands-on role in launching and scaling 16 new stables from both decentralized and fiat-backed issuers, including:
- Mento: cJPY, cGBP, cAUD, cCAD, cCHF, cNGN, cZAR, cCOP, cGHS, PUSO
- Stabila directly coordinated and incentivized launches of cJPY, cGBP, cAUD, cCAD, cCHF, cNGN, cZAR via Celo Governance
- BRLA Digital: BRLA
- Minteo: COPM
- VNX: vEUR, vCHF, vGBP
- Mountain Protocol: USDM
Celo now has a total of 25 native stables and 15 unique currencies tradable on Celo, forming the foundation for on-chain FX.
Performance Metrics:
TVL Growth:
-
Total Uniswap TVL grew from ~$23 million (July 2024) to ~$30 million by June 2025, despite broader market volatility and downward pressure on non-stable assets, e.g., CELO, wETH, etc.
-
A major contributor was coordination with ecosystem partners to bridge native wETH liquidity from Ethereum via Superbridge, deepening non-stable liquidity post-L2 transition.
-
Stablecoin TVL grew by ~26%, from $4.1 million to $5.2 million, peaking at $7-8 million during Q4 2024 amid stronger market sentiment and heightened demand for stablecoin-based yield opportunities.
Trading Volume
- Merkl-incentivized pools consistently generate over $100 million per month in trading volume, with peak months exceeding $250 million.
Ecosystem Standing:
- Celo is now the 8th largest chain by Uniswap v3 trading volume, with over 24,000 unique traders and more than $7.5 billion in cumulative volume to date.
Forward Outlook:
Moving forward, Stabila is shifting toward more TVL-weighted reward models to attract deeper and stickier liquidity, aligning with the Season 1 intent.
To complement this shift, Stabila is ramping up direct outreach to liquidity providers to drive greater awareness and participation. Several high-yield pools remain underutilized, likely due to limited discoverability across frontend interfaces and yield aggregator platforms. Improving pool visibility through integrations with aggregator tools and ecosystem dashboards will be a key focus in the months ahead.
4.3 Valora Learn & Earn:
In partnership with Valora and Tether, the Stabila Foundation contributed $70,000 USDT to co-incentivize a USDT Learn & Earn campaign that launched in September 2024. This initiative has proven to be a high-leverage user acquisition channel for the Celo ecosystem, with the campaign achieving:
- Over 180,000 new USDT wallet holders across Brazil, Vietnam, Nigeria, and South Africa
- Strong regional engagement, tapping into key emerging markets with high mobile wallet adoption
- Ongoing behavioral nudges, with recent iterations introducing calls to action that encourage users to begin liquidity provisioning with their earned USDT
The campaign continues to run, with remaining funds expected to be used in the coming months.
4.4 Legal & Administrative Fees:
Core operational expenses covered under this category include:
- Entity formation and governance: Legal setup, directorship, and ongoing administrative support to keep the Foundation in good standing
- Infrastructure and tooling: Website hosting, Google Workspace, and internal tooling necessary for day-to-day operations
- Compliance and screening: Wallet and entity screenings to ensure the Foundation engages with reputable and compliant partners
These foundational expenses have enabled Stabila to operate effectively, coordinate partner relationships, and execute large-scale ecosystem initiatives.
4.5 Conference Sponsorships/Marketing:
To raise awareness within the DeFi ecosystem, Stabila invested in strategic event sponsorships and marketing, including Title Sponsorship at Stable and unStable Summit events. Key highlights include:
- Speaking opportunities to share its mission and ecosystem progress, including The Block’s Emergence conference
- Booth presence and partner engagement at Devcon VII (Bangkok), EthDenver 2025, and an upcoming conference (TBA)
These efforts have helped accelerate Stabila’s DeFi integration and partnership pipeline.
4.6 Lynx Finance:
Supported the launch of Lynx, the first FX-focused perpetuals exchange on Celo, enabling leveraged trading of global currency pairs such as EUR, GBP, AUD, and NZD. To bootstrap adoption, Stabila funded a weekly trading competition spanning 12 weeks, resulting in:
- Weekly trading contests attracted 20–30 active traders
- 1,000+ trades and $8M+ in cumulative volume processed
- Attracting up to ~$80k of liquidity
A future roadmap is being explored to scale FX perps on Celo via Lynx or complementary platforms.
4.7 Acctual Finance:
To streamline ecosystem payments and operations, Stabila partnered with Acctual, a crypto-native invoicing and bill pay platform. This integration enabled:
- Safe(multisig wallet) based invoicing and payouts
- Full support for Celo-native stablecoins (e.g., USDC, USDT, cUSD, cEUR)
This infrastructure significantly improves the ability for vendors, contributors, and ecosystem grantees to transact seamlessly within the Celo ecosystem.
What’s Next:
As we look ahead, the Stabila Foundation is focused on deepening and sustaining the momentum built over the past year to scale Celo’s stablecoin and DeFi ecosystem by:
- Strengthening core infrastructure across Uniswap, Aave, Velodrome, and the upcoming Morpho deployment
- Expanding stablecoin FX use cases, including perpetuals and Self powered DeFi use cases
- Onboarding new stablecoins and driving adoption through wallets, DEXs, and lending protocols
To support this next phase, we’re preparing a Season 1 governance proposal, which will be shared shortly.
We welcome community feedback as we continue building Celo into the home for stablecoins and on-chain FX.