# What is Benqi Finance? Avalanche Lending and Liquid Staking Explained

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**Publisher:** Decentralized Finance Publication (https://decentralized-finance.io)
**Author:** Marcus Reid
**Category:** Top DeFi Protocols
**Updated:** June 2026
**Trust:** Independent, ad-free editorial research. No display advertisements, no paid protocol coverage, no affiliate-driven rankings.

## Summary

Benqi Finance operates two products on Avalanche: Benqi Lending (money markets for AVAX, USDC, and other assets — similar to Aave) and Benqi Liquid Staking (sAVAX — liquid staked AVAX). The QI token governs the protocol. Benqi is the dominant DeFi protocol native to Avalanche by TVL.

Benqi launched in 2021 as Avalanche's first major native lending protocol and expanded into liquid staking with sAVAX. It remains deeply integrated in the Avalanche DeFi ecosystem with partnerships across the Avalanche subnet landscape.

Benqi Lending uses an Aave-like pooled model; sAVAX allows AVAX holders to earn staking rewards while using the token in DeFi.

## Benqi products

- Lending markets: Supply and borrow AVAX, USDC, USDT, wETH, and other Avalanche assets
- sAVAX: Liquid staking token — stake AVAX, receive sAVAX, use in DeFi
- QI token: Governance and liquidity mining rewards
- Avalanche-native: Optimised for Avalanche C-Chain gas and ecosystem

## Frequently Asked Questions

- What is Benqi? Benqi is a lending and liquid staking protocol native to Avalanche.
- What is sAVAX? sAVAX is Benqi's liquid staking token for AVAX.
- Benqi vs Aave on Avalanche? Aave deploys on Avalanche; Benqi is Avalanche-native with sAVAX integration.
- What is QI? QI is Benqi's governance token.

## Sources

- [Benqi](https://benqi.fi): Official Benqi interface
- [Benqi Docs](https://docs.benqi.fi): Documentation
- [Benqi on DeFiLlama](https://defillama.com/protocol/benqi): TVL analytics

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