Lending protocol Echelon launches debt-driven Move appchain

Echelon, a decentralized lending protocol on Aptos, has launched Echelon Chain, a debt-focused Move application chain.

The application chain, built on Initia’s Interwoven Stack, leverages Celestia’s modular blockchain technology, the Echelon team announced on November 28.

Echelon Chain’s debut follows the release of the Echelon Roadmap, which highlights more than $100 million in total value locked and more than $132 million in borrowed assets. The application chain represents Echelon’s Move ecosystem’s strategy to dominate the decentralized finance market.

By integrating Initia’s Interwoven Stack, Echelon Chain brings significant benefits to the ecosystem, such as the inclusion of LayerZero, access to Celestia’s native assets, native USDC, and sacred oracles.

The platform is designed for debt management and capture of modular assets and offers atomic cross-chain composability with Initia layer-1 and a native liquidity hub.

In August this year, Echelon raised $3.5 million in seed funding from venture capital firms led by Amber Group, with participation from Laser Digital, Saison Capital, Re7, Selini Capital and Interop Ventures.

The funds were allocated to expand access to high-performance DeFi and real-world asset markets, introduce cross-chain deposit vaults, and hire smart contract and full-stack engineers.

Echelon’s public testnet is planned for later this year, and the mainnet launch will be aligned with the launch of Initia.