[Ethereum] Spark Liquidity Layer - Adjust Rate Limits for SparkLend USDT, Aave Core USDT, and Maple syrupUSDT - February 16, 2026

Spark's Operational Facilitator has placed a proposal into the voting system on behalf of nested contributor Phoenix Labs.

Review

The Spark community can hereby express support or opposition to the following changes, as described by the author of the proposal:

[Ethereum] Spark Liquidity Layer - Increase Rate Limit for SparkLend USDT

Spark is planning to significantly scale up the Spark Savings spUSDT vault, and we anticipate the existing SLL rate limits for USDT allocations may be insufficient to support the level of deposit and withdrawal flows going forward, resulting in carrying unallocated USDT at a loss. We propose to increase the rate limits for SparkLend, Maple, and Aave USDT allocations to match expected upper bound usage rates, while continuing to maintain appropriate protections against faults in the ALM planner and other SLL components.

SparkLend is fully governed under Spark and Sky, so there is minimal risk of allocating capital here or allowing for permissive rate limits. However, we will continue to implement risk mitigation features into both SparkLend and SLL (at both the onchain ALM controller level, as well as offchain ALM planner level) to further reduce tail risk exposure to the protocol.

Parameter summary:

• SLL configuration for SparkLend USDT
  • Deposits
    • maxAmount: 250 million (from current 100 million)
    • slope: 2 billion per day (from current 200 million per day)
  • Withdrawals
    • maxAmount: Unlimited

[Ethereum] Spark Liquidity Layer - Increase Rate Limit for Aave Core USDT

The overall reasoning for increasing rate limits is the same as above. Specifically for Aave Core USDT, because the market is not under the Spark governance umbrella we propose to set more restrictive rate limits, and particularly a lower maxAmount to give Spark and external teams more time to react to any possible faults before a significant amount of capital is deployed.

We propose to set a 10 million maximum amount for a single deposit to Aave USDT in the onchain level, which will ensure that any single deposit would be manageable compared to Spark’s risk capital, and give time to halt new deposits if occurring during a tail risk situation on Aave. Spark also plans to implement further safeguards at the level of the ALM Planner (offchain allocation logic) to mitigate risk and limit deposits when risk conditions are elevated.

In tandem with the conservative max amount parameter, we propose a relatively high slope (daily throughput) to enable SLL to appropriately rebalance capital between allocations even if Spark Savings USDT experiences significant deposit or withdrawal flows, or if Aave sees large rate volatility. Historically we see semi-regular USDT deposits and withdrawals at Aave of hundreds of millions to even above 1 billion USDT, so it is evident that this sort of large scale Tether activity should be expected going forward. The combination of low max amount and large slope strikes the optimal balance for Spark of limiting exposure to Aave technical or bad debt risks, while also minimizing Spark’s financial risks and opportunity costs that can arise from being unable to rebalance liquidity quickly enough.

Parameter summary:

• SLL configuration for Aave Core USDT
  • Deposits
    • maxAmount: 10 million (from current 50 million)
    • slope: 1 billion per day (from current 25 million per day)
  • Withdrawals
    • maxAmount: Unlimited

[Ethereum] Spark Liquidity Layer - Increase Rate Limit for Maple syrupUSDT

The overall reasoning for increasing rate limits is the same as above. Because Maple allocates to term loans and has relatively lower liquidity, SLL is expected to use it as a smaller, more tactical allocation venue for USDT to improve yield while keeping overall exposure and liquidity risk down. For this reason, we don’t expect to need as high of rate limits as for SparkLend or Aave noted above (which are the primary venues for supplying USDT liquidity backing Spark Savings).

Unlike most other SLL allocations, the withdrawal rate limits are not set as unlimited. Because Maple redemptions may not be atomic depending on available liquidity, we believe it is appropriate to limit maximum withdrawal throughputs to avoid a situation where an SLL fault creates a large volume of pending withdrawals. The proposed withdrawal rate limits should be more that sufficient to clear all syrupUSDT within a day or less under expected allocation volumes, so this should not materially impact SLL’s ability to meet USDT redemptions or rebalance liquidity.

Parameter summary:

• SLL configuration for Maple syrupUSDT
  • Deposits
    • maxAmount: 25 million (from current 50 million)
    • slope: 100 million (from current 10 million per day)
  • Withdrawals
    • maxAmount: 50 million (from current Unlimited)
    • slope: 500 million (from current Unlimited)

The proposed Spark Artifact changes can be found in the following pull request: https://github.com/sky-ecosystem/next-gen-atlas/pull/183

Outcomes

• If "For" receives the most votes, the proposal will be approved. The associated pull request will be merged into Spark's artifact. When required, the listed changes will proceed to implementation by the relevant actors.
• If "Against" receives the most votes, the proposal will be rejected. No changes will be implemented.