Spark Review

How Spark scores in crypto lending

This entry rates SparkLend, Spark's Aave v3-based money market, in our lending ranking. SparkLend now runs only on Ethereum; the Gnosis Chain market was fully deprecated in September 2026. The basis is desk research of Spark's documentation, now at docs.spark.finance, and its GitHub repositories, checked on November 1, 2026. No position was opened. The category uses five criteria, each marked 0 to 10 and weighted equally, as set out in our ratings methodology.

The overall score is the plain average: (4 + 6 + 8 + 6 + 7) ÷ 5 = 31 ÷ 5 = 6.2. The total is unchanged, but two marks moved on this pass. Fee disclosure rose from 3 to 4 after the docs began publishing a reserve factor for USDG and RLUSD. Audit disclosure fell from 8 to 7 because the security page no longer names the audit firms, leaving them to the file names in each repository.

Strongest criterion: liquidation terms

Liquidation terms (8)

The liquidations page states the rule in numbers. Once a position's health factor drops below 1, a liquidator may repay up to 50% of the debt in one call. At or below a health factor of 0.95, up to 100% can be repaid at once. Most Aave-derived markets leave that second threshold for a reader to find in code, and for a borrower watching a position slide it is the number that matters. The docs also give some per-asset thresholds. WBTC has a 77% LTV and a 78% liquidation threshold, WETH and wstETH in ETH E-Mode have 92% and 93%, and frozen tBTC, ezETH and rsETH have had a 70% threshold since June 4, 2026. The mark stops at 8 because the liquidation bonus for each asset is not listed; the docs send readers to the app.

Middle criteria: licence, governance and audits

Licence & code openness (6)

The sparklend-v1-core LICENSE file is Aave's Business Source License 1.1. It names Aave as licensor and Aave V3 Core (2022) as the licensed work. The change date is "the earlier of 27 January 2023 or a date specified at v3-license-date.aave.eth", and the change licence is MIT. Under the licence's own terms, MIT rights apply once that date passes, but the file still reads BUSL, so the status is not plain on its face. Spark's own Peg Stability Module is released under AGPL-3.0, a recognised open-source licence. The mark is unchanged.

Governance & timelock (6)

The governance page sets out who decides and how. Proposals go on the Sky forum, from holders of 100 million SPK (1% of supply) or nested contributors. An Operational Facilitator reviews them within seven days, and SPK holders then vote on Snapshot for three days, with more than 50% of non-abstaining votes needed. Technical changes ship as a Spark Spell through Sky's spell process. The page adds that the Spark Risk Council was removed from the Sky Atlas on August 27, 2026, so the facilitator's review is now the only one before a vote. No execution delay between a passed vote and a parameter change is stated, which keeps the mark at 6.

Audit disclosure (7): firms in file names only

The security page lists a dozen components, each linked to an audits folder on GitHub, but it names no firms. The folders do. SparkLend core holds Aave v3's base audits, dated from November 2021 to April 2023 (OpenZeppelin, Trail of Bits, PeckShield, ABDK, Sigma Prime), plus a ChainSecurity report on Spark's core updates. SparkLend Advanced, the Cap Automator and the ALM Controller hold ChainSecurity, Cantina and Certora reports labelled by version, such as v160 or v190. The Spark PSM reports carry dates (September and October 2024). The rubric asks for reports with firms named and dated. Here the firms appear only in file names, and most Spark-specific reports have no date, so the mark fell to 7.

Weakest criterion: fee disclosure

Fee disclosure (4): a deficiency, slightly narrowed

SparkLend charges borrowers through Aave-style settings: a reserve factor taken from interest and a liquidation protocol fee. The markets overview now gives a figure for two assets. USDG and RLUSD, onboarded on August 27, 2026, have a 10% reserve factor. The main borrow assets, DAI, USDS, USDC, USDT and PYUSD, get no figure in the docs, and neither does the liquidation protocol fee. The SparkLend page points to a Sky Atlas section holding the current per-asset configuration; that section was not opened for this pass and is not credited. A borrower still has to check most values in the app. Our guide to reading a DeFi lending market explains where to look.

What the score does not cover

• Rates. DAI and USDS borrow rates are anchored to a Sky-set rate at the 80% kink; rates were not measured.
• Spark Savings and the Liquidity Layer. Savings vaults and the allocator that supplies SparkLend are outside the lending criteria.
• Isolated markets. The Morpho-powered markets in the Spark app are not scored here.
• Oracles and caps. Spark's three-oracle median and Cap Automator are risk controls the rubric does not measure.

Spark vs Silo Finance and Aave

Silo Finance scores 6.0, two tenths below Spark. Spark leads on licence (6 against 3), liquidation terms (8 against 7) and governance (6 against 5), and trails on fees (4 against 6) and audits (7 against 9). Aave, whose v3 code SparkLend forks, scores 6.6. Its 9 for governance and 10 for audits outweigh Spark's two-point lead on liquidation terms.

Who this rating suits

The score suits borrowers who want to know exactly when a position can be fully liquidated, and who are comfortable with Sky governance setting parameters. Readers who need fee figures for the main stablecoin markets in the documentation, a stated delay on governance changes, or dated audit reports should weigh the lower marks. Borrowing against volatile collateral can end in liquidation; this rating describes published documentation and is not advice to lend or borrow.