Lending protocols now run on many blockchains, and several run more than one lending market on the same chain. When you open one to supply or borrow, the app asks for your network and your market, and a mismatch can put your collateral in one market while the loan you planned needs another.
The Aave protocol is a non-custodial liquidity protocol where you supply assets to earn interest or borrow against collateral (source: Aave, Aave v3 Overview). On Ethereum alone it runs four V3 markets, Core, Prime (formerly Lido), EtherFi and Horizon (source: Aave, Changelog). Three are open to any wallet and Horizon is permissioned, while Aave V4 adds separate markets of its own, so using Aave starts with picking the right market on the right network.
What is an Aave market?
An Aave market is a lending pool deployed to one blockchain network (source: Aave, Aave Markets). The network is the chain your wallet signs transactions on, such as Ethereum, Arbitrum or Base, and one network can host several Aave markets, each with its own asset list, caps and risk settings.
The split matters because the two choices control different things. Your wallet's network decides where your tokens are held and which coin pays the gas fee, while the market you pick decides which pool receives your supply and which assets you can borrow against it. Choosing Ethereum in the app is therefore only half of the decision, since Ethereum by itself hosts several separate V3 pools.
Inside one market, how Aave works stays the same: you supply into a shared pool, receive aTokens whose balance grows with interest and can use that supply as collateral for a loan (source: Aave, Aave v3 Overview). Each market's pool is separate from every other market's pool, so liquidity supplied to Core cannot fill a borrow on the Prime market, and a loan in one market is backed only by collateral in that same market.
The number that decides liquidation is the health factor. It equals your collateral value multiplied by its weighted average liquidation threshold and divided by the value you have borrowed. Once it falls below 1, a liquidator can repay part of your debt and take some of your collateral with a bonus (source: Aave, Health Factor & Liquidations).
Here is how that plays out across two markets. Suppose you supply $10,000 worth of ETH to Ethereum Core, the market sets an 80% liquidation threshold for ETH, and you borrow 5,000 USDC there, which puts your Core health factor at 10,000 × 0.8 / 5,000 = 1.6. You also have 3,000 USDC supplied on the Base market. If ETH falls until your Core collateral is worth $6,000, the Core figure becomes 6,000 × 0.8 / 5,000 = 0.96. Liquidators can then act on your Core loan even though 3,000 USDC is sitting on Base, because that supply counts only toward your Base position. Adding collateral on Core or repaying part of the Core loan would have kept the figure above 1. Using the Base USDC instead means withdrawing, bridging and supplying it to Core, which can take longer than a falling market allows.
Ethereum Core, Prime and EtherFi markets
Ethereum Core is the main permissionless Aave V3 market on mainnet. It went live on January 27, 2023 as the deepest Ethereum market for a broad mix of assets (source: Aave, Changelog). Prime and EtherFi are two later Ethereum markets with narrower collateral sets, and each runs as a separate pool beside Core.
The Prime market opened on July 29, 2024 as the Lido market, tuned for blue-chip collateral and for correlated assets borrowed at high loan-to-value. The EtherFi market followed on September 9, 2024, built around EtherFi collateral assets (source: Aave, Changelog). The Lido instance took the Prime name in December 2024, keeping its leveraged yield focus while it began accepting a wider set of collateral (source: Aave Labs, Lido).
Separate markets exist because correlated collateral behaves differently from a general asset mix. Looping a liquid staking token against ETH means supplying the token, borrowing ETH, staking it and supplying the result again, and that strategy works best with high loan-to-value settings that would add risk to the whole of Core. Aave's Efficiency Mode (E-Mode) raises the loan-to-value ratio when you supply and borrow assets from the same correlated category (source: Aave, Aave v3 Overview). A dedicated market lets governance set caps, E-Mode categories and liquidation thresholds for one collateral set while Core keeps its broader settings.
Before you supply on Ethereum, check three things in the app: the market name at the top of the screen, your collateral listed as a supply asset there, and your borrow asset listed in the same market. Enabling collateral in Core and then trying to borrow in EtherFi gives you two unrelated positions, so the app will refuse the EtherFi borrow until you supply collateral in EtherFi as well.
Aave V3 markets on layer 2 and other networks
Aave V3 also runs native markets on many networks beyond Ethereum mainnet, including Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Polygon, Avalanche and BNB Chain (source: Aave Address Book, src registry). A native market means the pool contracts are deployed on that network, so you connect your wallet there and use that network's own liquidity.
Newer V3 networks keep arriving. Plasma opened on September 25, 2025, MegaETH and Mantle in February 2026, X Layer on March 29, 2026 and Monad on July 2, 2026 (source: Aave, Changelog). Linea, Gnosis and Celo have V3 deployments as well (source: Aave Address Book, src registry). Any list like this is a snapshot of one date, so confirm the network and the market name in the app before you size a position.
Many of these networks are layer 2 (L2) rollups, which scale Ethereum and extend decentralized finance on Ethereum with lower transaction fees. Reaching one usually takes a bridge, a tool that carries tokens and information between blockchains that cannot communicate natively. Chasing a better supply rate on another network's Aave market is a standard reason to use one, though every bridge adds the risk of a bug in its own smart contracts (source: ethereum.org, Blockchain bridges).
Moving tokens to a network and supplying them are two separate steps. The bridge transaction delivers the tokens to your wallet on the destination network, where they earn nothing until you supply them to that network's Aave market in a second transaction. A bridge moves tokens only, so any supply or loan you already hold on Ethereum stays in its Ethereum market with its own collateral.
Aave V4 hubs, spokes and networks
Aave V4 is the newer version of the protocol. Its Liquidity Hubs hold supplied assets while spokes connect to a hub with their own collateral types and risk rules (source: Aave Labs, Aave V4 is Live on Ethereum). V4 runs beside V3, so both versions have live markets.
On Ethereum, V4 went live on March 30, 2026 with Core, Plus and Prime hubs and eleven spokes. A Paxos Global Dollar (USDG) hub and spoke followed there on June 25, 2026. V4 reached Avalanche on July 15, 2026 as its first network after Ethereum, with a Core Hub and Main, Forex and AVAX Correlated spokes. An Arc market opened on September 16, 2026 (source: Aave, Changelog).
Base also has a V4 Equities Hub (source: Aave Labs, Coinbase Tokenized Stocks on Aave V4). That makes Ethereum, Avalanche, Arc and Base the networks with Aave's own V4 markets as of October 2026. The Aave DAO plans to bring V4 to more networks once it proves itself in production (source: Aave Labs, Aave V4 is Live on Ethereum).
The structure changes what happens to your deposit. Each V3 market holds its own pool. On V4, supplying through a spoke puts your tokens into the hub behind it, where every spoke connected to that hub can lend them out (source: Aave Labs, Aave V4 is Live on Ethereum). The V4 Prime Hub on Ethereum and the V3 Prime market share a name but are separate deployments with separate funds, so read the version label before the market name.
Every market above is a way to put tokens to work inside Aave. If your next step is exposure to the AAVE token's price with no lending position, BloFin is another way to get it. You can buy the token on AAVE/USDT Spot or trade the AAVEUSDT Perpetual, a USDT-settled contract that tracks its price.
Before you size a trade on either, compare the maker and taker rates for your account tier on the BloFin fee schedule.
Horizon as a separate permissioned market
Aave Horizon is a separate, licensed Aave instance for institutions and other qualified participants, first forked from Aave V3.3. Its purpose is to let approved users supply tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral and borrow stablecoins against them (source: Aave, Aave Horizon RWA Market).
Horizon has run on Ethereum since August 27, 2025 (source: Aave, Changelog). The market has two sides with different access rules. Supplying RWA collateral is limited to users the RWA's issuer has allowlisted after identity and compliance checks, and only users who have supplied that collateral can borrow. The stablecoin side is open to any wallet that wants to supply USDC, RLUSD or GHO for yield, though those stablecoins cannot serve as collateral. The aTokens you receive for RWA collateral cannot be transferred, which keeps each collateral position with the address that supplied it (source: Aave, Aave Horizon RWA Market).
That split is the case to watch on Horizon. Supplying USDC there earns a rate paid by qualified borrowers, yet the supply gives you no borrowing power, because borrowing requires RWA collateral that you cannot post without the issuer's approval. If you want to borrow against ordinary crypto collateral, Core, Prime, EtherFi or an L2 market is the place to look, wherever your collateral is listed.
Horizon also prices collateral differently. RWAs are valued from a net asset value reported by the issuer. Chainlink checks each report against preset upper and lower bounds before it reaches the market, rejecting any report outside them and keeping the last valid price in force (source: Aave, Aave Horizon RWA Market).
Qualification runs through each RWA issuer, so read Aave Horizon's eligibility rules before you plan a Horizon position. Confirm the market name before you enable collateral or sign a borrow, as you would on any other market.
How to choose an Aave market for supply or borrow
Choose the market before you bridge or compare rates. The right market runs on a network you can reach cheaply and lists both your collateral and the asset you want to borrow. It should also match the version, V3 or V4, and the access type, open or permissioned, that fits your plan.
Work through the choice in this order:
- Start from where your tokens already are. If they are on Arbitrum or Base and that network's Aave market lists them, a native market saves you a bridge.
- Open the market list for that network and confirm your collateral and your borrow asset appear in the same market, with supply and borrow caps that leave room for your size.
- Compare rates only across the markets that pass step 2. Because Aave interest rates follow utilization inside each market, the same asset can pay a different annual percentage yield (APY) on Core than on Arbitrum.
- Check the pool contract against the official Aave contract addresses for that network before you approve a token.
- Bridge only if no market on your current network passes steps 2 and 3, then supply on the destination market in a separate transaction.
A common mistake shows why the order matters. You withdraw 2,000 USDC from an exchange to Ethereum because Core is the market you know, then find that the Base market lists the same USDC at a better rate. Reaching Base now takes a bridge transaction and a second gas fee, which you would have avoided by picking Base as the withdrawal network in the first place. Matching the withdrawal network to the market you chose is the cheapest step in the whole process.
On a network where both versions are live, Ethereum for example, check whether the market you found is a V3 pool or a V4 spoke. The two deployments hold separate funds and show separate positions, so a supply on one never backs a loan on the other.
Looking to trade AAVE tokens on BloFin? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, then open the AAVE/USDT Spot trading page or the AAVEUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
How do I exit a position in the wrong Aave market?
Repay any borrow in that market first, then withdraw your supply from the same market. Withdrawing redeems your aTokens for the underlying asset, interest included, but only up to the unborrowed liquidity left in that pool and only while any open loan stays over-collateralized. When a pool is heavily borrowed, a full withdrawal can stall until borrowers repay or new suppliers add funds. Once the tokens are back in your wallet, open the market you meant to use and supply there as a fresh position (source: Aave, Aave v3 Overview).
How much of a loan can be liquidated at once on Aave?
Half of the debt is the most a liquidator can repay in one go while your health factor remains over 0.95 and the collateral and debt are each worth $2,000 or more. At 0.95 or lower, or when either side is worth less than $2,000, the whole debt can be repaid in a single liquidation. A partial liquidation has to keep $1,000 or more of both collateral and debt in the position, otherwise the liquidator clears it in full. The liquidator receives the repaid value from your collateral plus a liquidation bonus (source: Aave, Health Factor & Liquidations).
Can you borrow against tokenized stocks on Aave?
The Aave V4 Equities Hub on Base takes tokenized US stocks as collateral for USDC loans through its Mag-7 Spoke, where you can supply any mix of the seven stock tokens. Each token carries its own collateral factor, with MSFTc given the highest factor at launch and METAc and TSLAc the lowest, and the stocks cannot be borrowed. A second spoke, Tokenized USDC, is supply-only. USDC lent through the hub backs only these stock loans, kept separate from other Aave markets on Base. Chainlink total return feeds that follow US equity trading hours price each stock (source: Aave governance, ARFC Deploy Aave V4 on Base).
What assets does the Aave V4 Arc market list?
The Arc market lists USDC, EURC, cirBTC and WETH through a single Core Hub with two spokes, named Main and Forex. Arc itself is Circle's Layer 1 blockchain, and it uses USDC as its native asset. Supplying there needs a wallet connected to Arc, so funds held on Ethereum or another network have to be bridged over before they can earn interest or back a loan on that market (source: Aave, Changelog).
What is Aave Pro?
Aave Pro is the dedicated interface for Aave V4, and it names each market by its spoke and its hub, so Main Core is the Main Spoke on the Core Hub. For any asset it lists every market where you can supply it, with that market's APY, the capacity left before the cap, the liquidity available to borrowers and whether the deposit can back a loan. The collateral factor beside each market tells you how much you can borrow per dollar deposited. The same asset often carries different rates and collateral factors from one market to the next (source: Aave Labs, Aave Pro User Guide).
Which kind of bridge is safer for reaching an Aave market?
Trustless bridges, which run on smart contracts and algorithms, keep security close to that of the chains they connect and let you stay in control of your funds. Trusted bridges depend on a central operator, which adds custodial and censorship risk on top of the usual contract and technology risk. Many bridges fall somewhere between the two models. Several networks also run a native bridge, and Arbitrum's, for example, moves ETH from Ethereum mainnet onto Arbitrum (source: ethereum.org, Blockchain bridges).
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. Primary sources include Aave v3 documentation, the Aave docs changelog, Aave Horizon documentation, Aave help on health factor and liquidations, and the Aave Address Book registry on GitHub. They also include Aave Labs notes on the V4 launches on Ethereum and Base, the Aave Labs Lido case study, the Aave Pro user guide, the Aave governance proposal to deploy V4 on Base, and ethereum.org on blockchain bridges. All facts independently verified against cited documentation current as of October 2026.
This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial, investment, trading, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency can lose value. Borrowing on Aave can lead to liquidation if the health factor drops below 1. Spot AAVE/USDT buys the token. An AAVEUSDT Perpetual is a contract on the price. Do your own research. Consider your circumstances before using any protocol or trading any asset.