Gearbox
Credit · Leveraged Yield · GEAR
Gearbox is a generalized leverage protocol: users open Credit Accounts to borrow against collateral and deploy leveraged positions into integrated DeFi strategies (Curve, Convex, Lido, Yearn).
Composable leverage via Credit Accounts.
GEAR price
$0.0005
+2.4% 24h
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Research
Components, facts, FAQ, timeline, and tokenomics in one place
Main components (4)
Credit Accounts
Isolated smart-contract accounts that hold a borrower's collateral and debt together and can interact with integrated DeFi protocols. Users effectively get a 'leveraged wallet' via account abstraction, borrowing pool liquidity to trade or farm with up to ~10x leverage while collateral and positions stay ring-fenced per account.
Passive lending pools
Single-asset liquidity pools where passive lenders deposit and earn APY funded by borrower interest and fees. Depositors receive Diesel Tokens (dTokens; ERC-4626 vault shares in V3) that accrue interest proportional to their share. V3 introduced quotas, collateral/exposure limits and risk-segmented pools.
GEAR token
Governance token of the Gearbox DAO with a 10 billion total supply. GEAR is used to vote on supported assets, integrations and parameters; V3 tokenomics add staking and gauge/quota voting that influences borrowing fees per asset and revenue distribution.
Adapters & integrations
Whitelisted adapter contracts that let Credit Accounts route leveraged capital into external DeFi protocols (e.g. Uniswap, Curve, Convex, Balancer, Pendle, Lido/staking). Adapters are what make Gearbox leverage 'composable' — the same borrowed liquidity can be deployed across many integrated strategies.
Differentiator
Credit Accounts compose leverage across protocols rather than a single isolated farm — up to ~10x with a unified margin position.
Organizational structure
Units & roles
- Governance / protocol owner
Gearbox DAO
Community DAO that governs Gearbox via GEAR token voting and a treasury multisig; the DAO Treasury Multisig originally held ~51% of GEAR supply and controls supported-asset and parameter decisions.
- Core development team
Gearbox core contributors
The founding and core contributor team that builds the protocol (V1 through V3) and ships proposals for DAO ratification. Gearbox transitioned to a DAO at its December 2021 token generation event.
Investment rounds
Similarity to traditional finance products
How Gearbox maps onto established TradFi structures, and where it diverges.
| TradFi product | Similarity to Gearbox | Key differences |
|---|---|---|
| Prime brokerage / margin account | Like a prime broker or margin account, Gearbox extends borrowed capital against posted collateral so a user can take leveraged positions far larger than their own equity, with the position monitored and force-liquidated if collateral falls below maintenance requirements. | Gearbox is non-custodial and permissionless: leverage is enforced by isolated on-chain Credit Accounts and whitelisted adapters rather than a broker's balance sheet, credit checks or centralized risk desk. Borrowed funds can only be deployed into governance-approved protocols and cannot be freely withdrawn. |