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BenqiAvalancheQI

What is Benqi Finance? Avalanche Lending and Liquid Staking Explained

Benqi is Avalanche's leading lending protocol and liquid staking provider — offering qiTokens for lending and sAVAX for staked AVAX exposure.

Editorial TeamJune 2026Last reviewed: June 2026

Quick answer

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.

Market context

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Related comparisons

Benqi vs Aave on Avalanche (2026)

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.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Data Sources

Benqi

Official Benqi interface

Benqi Docs

Documentation

Benqi on DeFiLlama

TVL analytics

BenqiAvalancheQIsAVAXLendingLiquid Staking

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