what's mars protocol?
Mars Protocol is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform built on the Cosmos ecosystem, functioning as a modular credit protocol that enables lending, borrowing, perpetual trading, and advanced yield strategies. It originated from the Terra blockchain and has expanded to support multiple chains via Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), including Neutron, Osmosis, and others. The protocol's core components include the Red Bank, a lending market where users can deposit collateral to borrow assets or earn yields; Perps, a decentralized exchange for leveraged perpetual futures trading; and Vaults, which automate complex strategies like leveraged yield farming to optimize returns for users. At its heart, Mars Protocol emphasizes capital efficiency and risk management through features like dynamic interest rates, liquidation mechanisms, and oracle integrations for price feeds. Users interact via intuitive interfaces, supplying assets to earn interest or borrowing against collateral while maintaining health factors to avoid liquidation. The protocol's governance is community-driven through the Mars Token (MARS), allowing holders to propose and vote on parameters such as collateral factors, borrow limits, and fee structures. Mars Protocol's design promotes interoperability, allowing seamless asset transfers across Cosmos chains and bridging to ecosystems like Bitcoin via trust-minimized solutions. It serves as a foundational "money lego" in DeFi, supporting leveraged positions, credit lines for DAOs, and innovative tools like circuit breakers during volatility to protect users.
Mars Protocol restored USDC LTV to 0.90 on Neutron outpost after migration completion.
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Restored USDC loan-to-value (LTV) ratio to standard level of 0.90 on the Neutron outpost after migration completion.
Borrowing has been disabled for all assets except USDC on the Mars Neutron outpost as an additional temporary risk-mitigation measure following the recent security incident; deposits and repayments remain enabled with no changes to the Osmosis outpost or Amber Finance.
Addresses involved in the recent security incident are identified and flagged with active on-chain tracking; the team attempts contact with the responsible party to explore resolution and recover user funds.
An incident affected the platform causing USDC borrow rates to spike to 213%, prompting Risk DAO to execute emergency parameter adjustments reducing rates to 15% to prevent cascading liquidations. A full post-mortem investigation is underway.
Four new perpetual trading markets ($MON, $ZEC, $WLFI, $ASTER) go live on Mars Neutron outpost as Gen3 leverage trading markets.
Mars Fragments Leaderboard goes live with dedicated dashboard for users to track their Mars Fragments, rankings, and estimated $MARS rewards on-chain.
Mars Fragments Rewards Campaign launches, distributing 45M $MARS tokens to users who deepen liquidity across Mars-aligned markets.
Osmosis v31 upgrade changes base fee structure, requiring Mars users to reconnect wallets to fix transaction errors.
Governance vote activated to list $dATOM-$ATOM and $dATOM-$USDC Supervault LP tokens as collateral on the Red Bank.
$MARS staking tiers with trading fee discounts go live, accompanied by UI v3.0.0 update and new multisig security framework.
App downtime caused by AWS (Vercel) outage resolved with region switching and addition of two fallback regions for enhanced resilience.
Protocol's circuit breaker successfully prevented mass liquidations during Friday's crash when Pyth oracle malfunctioned and reported sub-dollar ATOM prices following Binance issues.
$ATOM deployment into lending pools via Hydro now offers $MARS rewards for voters and yields for locked $ATOM holders.
Governance vote activated for v2.4.0 contract upgrade on Neutron, adding staking discounts, governance improvements, native DEX reward routing, and Slinky LST oracle support.
Protocol reports significant lending activity with $1.97M in liquidated collateral and $112.9K in fees from 2,508 liquidations across Neutron and Osmosis outposts in the past 24 hours.
Price action shows extreme volatility with 12x gain followed by sharp selloff. Mars-themed movie in U.S. top 10 provides cultural narrative catalyst.
Open Interest reaches $1.5M, rapidly accelerating from the $1M milestone crossed earlier this week.
$stATOM is being fully delisted as collateral on the Neutron outpost, completing a previously announced deprecation.
Token supply update requested on CoinGecko due to burns, with updated tokenomics already live on Mars Stats.
Governance vote activated for Protocol v2.3.1 upgrade on Neutron, introducing rewards distributor whitelist and spot trading fees.
Amber Finance launches with support for 6 BTC-representative tokens and 4x reward multipliers, with all revenue flowing to Mars Protocol Foundation.
Foundation announces new Directors @marky__mars and @LinkieLink, while previous Directors @dancreee and @dohko_01 transition to advisor roles.
Four new perpetual markets ($HYPE, $PUMP, $ONDO, $PENDLE) launch with 6x leverage capability.
Protocol upgrade v2.3.0 introduces Duality swapper and isolated USDC margin accounts on Neutron and Osmosis chains.
stATOM collateral deprecation on Neutron deployment scheduled for July 29 due to AADAO liquidation removal; users advised to unwind positions.
USDC Rate Model governance vote scheduled for July 24.
Perpetuals market reaches $512K Open Interest ATH, showing 70% bi-weekly growth with ATOM perps dominating at 47%.
New BTFD Vault launches with buy-the-dip strategy implementation
BTC yield program expands with four-token reward structure and eight protocol partnerships on Neutron.
New bribes program offers 90 WBTC.axl rewards for MARS-USDC pool voters and 36 ATOM for MARS-NTRN pool voters in Epoch 17 on Astroport.
Token Utility Program Phase 1 launches with new staking interface, marking first implementation of token utility features.
New BTC yield products launching through Neutron partnership, including lending, perps, and Supervaults.
Native bribes launch on Astroport for MARS-NTRN pool, with ATOM rewards available for vxASTRO voters.
Managed Vaults feature launches on mainnet, enabling leveraged trading for managers and passive exposure for depositors.
Governance proposal submitted to list Axelar Wrapped Bitcoin as collateral and borrowable asset on Neutron Red Bank.
Major deposit cap expansion implemented across four key assets, with NTRN cap tripling to 15M and other assets seeing 50-100% increases.
Potential pump and dump activity detected with coordinated price action being suggested in connection with unconfirmed Elon Musk claims.
Governance proposal initiated for v2.2.3 contract upgrade, preparing for Managed Vaults launch.
Governance vote launched to migrate Safety Fund from axlUSDC to Noble USDC and expand its strategic use cases under Foundation multisig custody.
New daily volume ATH of $737K achieved, marking highest trading activity to date.
Vault currently offers 70% APY yield farming opportunity.
Perpetuals trading reaches new ATH of $430K in Open Interest, doubling since April 2024.
Protocol evolves with Managed Vaults feature, enabling automated strategy-driven trading capabilities.
Active yield opportunity available through Hydro Round 6 with 47% APR and $1,500 in rewards for liquidity providers.
New yield farming opportunity available with 9.1% APY on ATOM and 5.7% APY on NTRN through Neutron outpost lending.
$MOVE perpetual market is being delisted due to unfavorable risk profile assessment.
Native NFT marketplace Superbolt launches May 15th featuring Mars-integrated NFT collection; automatic whitelist for Credit Account holders.
$INIT perpetual trading market deploys on Neutron, enabling 3x leveraged trading.
Active governance vote to add dNTRN as collateral and launch HLS staking market on Neutron protocol.
OM perpetual market is delisted due to unfavorable risk profile, with all remaining positions forcefully closed through protocol deleveraging.
New perpetual markets for BERA, FXS, and LINK now live on Neutron.
Governance vote active for launching LINK, FXS, and BERA perpetual markets on Neutron.
Dashboard expansion enables cross-chain monitoring of TVL, liquidations, and perpetual markets data across Neutron and Osmosis outposts.
Open Interest and trading volumes show significant increase alongside rising user engagement.
Protocol launches enhanced liquidity onboarding with cross-chain USDC deposits and smart fee selection.
Community proposal live to burn 120 million tokens from Protocol Community Pool.
Multiple scam indicators present: unauthorized Elon Musk association and unverified claims about investor composition raise significant risk concerns.
Completed burn of 122M MARS tokens, reducing total supply to 577,958,415. Current circulating supply is 247.3M. Implementing buy and burn mechanism. Non-circulating includes 60M for Neutron Revenue DAO (6-year vest), 90.6M for Foundation, 59.5M for Contributors, 120.5M for Community Pool.
Shutting down operations on March 20, 2025 at 12:00 PM UTC following migration to DAO DAO on Neutron. Users needed to complete MARS token migration before shutdown.
Mentioned in context of potential Bitget listing.
Project aiming to support Elon Musk and Donald Trump's Mars mission. Focus is on long-term value tied to Mars landing achievement.
Token holders must migrate old MARS from Mars Hub to Neutron or Osmosis before January 29, 2025. Migration to new canonical version required.
Proposal 55 launched for voting to update pinned contracts to reduce gas consumption.
Added to DefiLlama's Derivatives Volume Dashboard with BTC and ETH markets live. ATOM and TIA markets announced as coming soon.
Launched gen3 perp DEX allowing users to use LPs and vaults within credit accounts as collateral instead of just USDC
Launching perps on Neutron mainnet on December 14, 2024 at 10 AM UTC. Supporting up to 10x leverage on BTC-USD and ETH-USD markets. Allows using whitelisted Astroport LPs as collateral.
Launching BTC/USD and ETH/USD perp markets on Neutron with up to 10x leverage. Features cross-collateral and cross-margin functionality. Uses USDC for PnL settlements.
Announced winners of Perps Trading Competition with prizes ranging from 15,413.07 to 123,304.56 MARS tokens.