# Aave approves borrow-only USDtb onboarding at the ARFC stage

> A concrete AIP path opened for a USDtb reserve with a 50 million supply cap, 40 million borrow cap, and an interest-rate curve intended to deepen borrowing liquidity for stablecoin leverage strategies.

- URL: https://riadefi.com/on-chain/2025-04-27-aave-v3-ethereum-core-usdtb-borrow-reserve-arfc-approval/
- Type: Economic change
- Stage: Approved, not executed
- Evidence: confirmed
- Materiality: material
- Event date: 2025-04-27
- Version: 1, published 2026-08-22 (first published 2026-08-22)
- Follow-up: 2025-05-15
- Advisor-relevant: no
- Affects: Aave v3 (protocol)

## What happened

Aave's ARFC Snapshot approved advancing USDtb as a borrow-enabled, non-collateral reserve on the Ethereum Core instance.

## What changed

A concrete AIP path opened for a USDtb reserve with a 50 million supply cap, 40 million borrow cap, and an interest-rate curve intended to deepen borrowing liquidity for stablecoin leverage strategies.

## What did not change

The ARFC approval did not deploy the reserve, enable USDtb as collateral, execute final parameters, or add USDtb to Ketju's approved assets.

## Confirmed

- The ARFC Snapshot passed on April 27 with quorum and YAE as the winning option.
- USDtb was proposed as borrowable but not collateral-enabled.
- The proposed supply and borrow caps were 50 million and 40 million.
- The official risk review identified concentrated Ethena-linked holdings, KYC-gated direct redemption, custodian reliance, and BUIDL and stablecoin reserves.

## Still open

- The final AIP payload, vote, and execution.
- Live deposit concentration, borrow utilization, secondary liquidity, and redemption performance.
- Final reserve composition, custodian exposure, and cross-chain dependencies at execution.
- Whether the proposed reserve affects approved GHO-market liquidity or risk in practice.

## What it means for an advisor

- Review the Aave memo's reserve and counterparty-risk map for USDtb, BUIDL, Pallas entities, custodians, and KYC-gated redemption.
- Verify the final AIP, executed caps, oracle, and live liquidity before treating USDtb as an operative Aave reserve.
- Keep Ketju's approved Aave exposure and USDtb asset suitability as separate decisions.

## Sources

1. [[ARFC] Onboard USDtb to Aave v3 Core Instance](https://governance.aave.com/t/arfc-onboard-usdtb-to-aave-v3-core-instance/21746) · Aave Governance Forum · 2025-04-09


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Published by Ketju Research on RIADeFi (https://riadefi.com). Educational research for financial professionals; not investment, legal, tax, or compliance advice.