Euler Aims to Expand on V2’s DeFi Lending Revival

How Euler recovered from a devastating hack.

Points to Know:

• Euler was on the brink of shutting down after a $200 million hack in March 2023.
• Instead of folding, the team chose to rebuild the platform from the ground up.
• Euler is now reaching new all-time highs in key performance metrics.

Euler Finance, a crypto lending and borrowing platform, has made a strong comeback in the DeFi space.

This week, the protocol hit record highs in total value locked (TVL) and total borrows, key indicators of activity for a decentralized finance lender.

Euler now manages hundreds of millions in crypto assets—still far behind Ethereum lending giants like Aave, but a remarkable feat for a platform that was nearly wiped out by a $200 million hack two years ago.

"A lot of people wrote us off and said it would have been totally normal for us to end the project right there," said Michael Bentley, CEO of Euler Labs. Instead, his team chose to rebuild the platform from the ground up.

Euler’s revival centered on a fresh vision: a customizable borrowing hub where users could tailor risk, yields, and asset parameters—a departure from its original one-size-fits-all lending model.

“There just isn't a one-size-fits-all when it comes to lending and borrowing,” said Michael Bentley, CEO of Euler Labs.

The comeback wasn’t guaranteed. Despite reimbursing victims of the hack, the team questioned whether the market would trust a protocol with a damaged reputation. Euler also missed most of DeFi’s 2024 boom while undergoing extensive security reviews, finally launching V2 in September 2024—nearly a year and a half after going offline.

To attract users back, Euler deployed a relatively modest incentives program, offering only a “few million” in EUL tokens—far less than the tens of millions some competitors spent. Bentley credits most of the platform’s growth to strong product-market fit.

Now, despite Ethereum’s price volatility, Euler continues to expand. It’s one of only two top-10 lending protocols that have grown in active loans over the past month.

“If this ends up being a bear market, I’m still confident that Euler will continue growing relative to some of the other opportunities out there,” Bentley said.