clear comparison with Aave and Radiant so you can decide with confidence
Borrowing on Dolomite means turning an asset you already own into spendable liquidity without selling it. You deposit one or more tokens as collateral in your Dolomite balance, then you borrow the asset you need. The borrowed funds can cover an expense, reinforce a position, hedge risk, or build a yield loop. The Borrow interface is designed to make this a few clicks with readable settings. The guiding principle is simple. Your collateral stays in place, you keep its upside potential, and you unlock capital in a reversible way. This logic sits at the heart of Dolomite’s protocol and its official borrowing docs, which explain how to use the Borrow page and how to open and manage a borrowing position step by step.
How Dolomite executes your moves cleanly
Under the hood, Dolomite is more than a borrowing page. It is a modular margin protocol that combines lending and swapping to cut invisible friction. Every action you request is translated into a sequence of Actions sent to the protocol’s immutable core. That lets you chain supply, borrow, trade, redeposit in a compact, efficient way. Two building blocks make a real difference day to day. Transfer with internal liquidity moves funds between your subaccounts or wallets while staying inside the same risk frame, avoiding costly round trips. Trade routes your swaps to external liquidity when it helps or to an internal virtual-liquidity layer to limit slippage. Flash loans, which are free on Dolomite, stitch these steps into a single route, reducing transaction count and failure points. The goal is to execute the same strategy with fewer losses, fewer clicks, and more predictability.
What you tangibly gain when you borrow
Three practical benefits stand out for newcomers. You unlock cash flow without cutting your long positions. You can hedge part of a volatile asset’s risk by borrowing a complementary asset. You can industrialize a loop that converts a gap between collateral yield and debt cost into a net, measurable stream. On the protocol side, Dolomite follows a simple, healthy rule. As an asset’s utilization goes up, its interest rate rises, with a sharper bend once utilization is high. That curve encourages fresh supply when too many users are borrowing and keeps rates low as long as possible when utilization is reasonable. Put simply, the mechanics discourage extremes and naturally nudge lenders and borrowers toward balance. The Stats guide sets out this rate model and its kink logic around high utilization levels, which helps you understand why rates move and how to read your costs before you size up.
Dolomite’s strengths for borrowing, in concrete terms
What makes borrowing on Dolomite pleasant is not a flashy headline number but the chain of small details that save basis points by quarter-end. Subaccounts so you can isolate strategies. Internal transfers to move funds without breaking collateral. Integrated trading so you do not need three tabs and five signatures. Free flash loans to compress a long sequence into one pass. Dolomite’s docs emphasize that the protocol combines DEX and money market to deliver over-collateralized loans, margin, and spot with a virtual-liquidity logic. This architecture is pedagogical for beginners and operational for advanced users. You can learn with a small ticket and scale later without changing tools, simply by repeating the same routine with bigger sizes and finer alerts.
Limits to keep in mind before you size up
No platform replaces your personal discipline. Borrowing comes with risks you must steer. First is liquidation risk if your collateral drops too fast or your borrow ratio is too tight. Second is cost risk, because what matters is not the posted rate but what you keep after fees, slippage, and gas. Third is route and oracle risk inherent to on-chain finance. On the protocol side, Dolomite’s rate model tries to keep costs reasonable while utilization is healthy, then accelerates rates when an asset gets scarce, which rebalances supply and demand. On the user side, the best practice is a minimal log. Collateral, debt, target LTV, claim windows if you are looping, net after fees, and two full validation cycles before increasing size. That simple discipline turns a borrowing feature into a durable routine.
Dolomite in a multichain world and what that means for borrowing
Dolomite is live on multiple EVM-compatible networks including Arbitrum, Mantle, Polygon zkEVM, and X Layer, with broader rollouts on newer ecosystems such as Berachain based on team communications and community updates. Borrowers benefit from lower gas costs, faster confirmations, and smoother margin adjustments. The trade-off in a multichain world is potential liquidity fragmentation, which is why integrated routes and internal transfers matter to reduce bridges and back-and-forths. Always check which network holds your collateral, where you borrow, and where the best market depth is for the asset you care about. Public pages and recent educational posts recap supported networks and an interoperability approach aimed at reducing cross-network friction.
A candid comparison with two projects in a similar narrative
To place Dolomite, let’s compare it with Aave and Radiant, two well-known lending protocols.
Aave is a long-time leader with impressive market depth. At the time of writing, third-party dashboards show Aave’s global TVL and borrowed volumes are very high, with a rich multichain footprint across Ethereum and many L2s. In short, Aave shines through liquidity scale and diversification. That translates to many pairs and stability in major markets. The trade-off is that the feature stack can feel dense for a beginner, and decisions in a large-scale governance process can move more slowly, since many networks and versions have to stay aligned.
Radiant focuses on an omnichain approach with fast expansion and tooling around cross-chain activity. Public metrics show meaningful cumulative fees and revenue over time, signaling real activity from borrowers and lenders and an economic model that pays the protocol and its stakeholders. Radiant is interesting if you want quick moves across networks with a well-designed L2-centric asset set. The flip side, as with any heavily multichain strategy, is the risk of liquidity dispersion and the need to watch your total cost as you traverse multiple environments.
Against these two heavyweights, Dolomite’s stance is execution. Fewer clicks, more integrated moves, internal transfers, virtual liquidity, free flash loans to compress sequences. That does not replace Aave’s massive depth on all the blue chips, but it offers a more direct experience for executing a loop, moving collateral between subaccounts, and chaining borrow then trade within the same flow. If your priority is ergonomic action and reduced operational friction, Dolomite scores points. If your priority is maximum depth on ultra-liquid assets, Aave remains a benchmark. If your priority is fast mobility across many networks with participant rewards, Radiant is a strong comparison point.
Useful stats to know and a net first mindset to decide
Numbers help set realistic expectations. On Dolomite, public materials describe a protocol active on several networks with a kinked rate model and an architecture that blends lending, margin, and swapping. Recent public checkpoints from the team and community mention presence on at least four mainstream EVM networks, visible expansion toward Berachain, and multi-billion dollar cumulative volumes over time. On Aave, independent dashboards indicate massive TVL and borrowed volume spread across many chains. On Radiant, public tables show cumulative fees and aggregated revenue that give a sense of activity on the V2 protocol. In practice, you will not choose on a single number but on your net. Test a small loop on Dolomite, note your borrow cost, slippage, and fees, then replay the same sequence at the same size on Aave or Radiant. The best choice is the one that leaves you the most net at the end of a cycle with the clearest risk visibility along the way.
A simple checklist to start today
Pick a healthy collateral
Deposit an asset you know and are comfortable holding over time. Verify the network you are using and the available market depth for that asset on Dolomite. Public site pages list active networks and help you avoid surprises at swap time.
Borrow conservatively
Start with a cautious borrow ratio to absorb bumps. Remember that as an asset’s utilization rises, the rate can accelerate past a threshold. Dolomite’s Stats guide explains this behavior and helps you anticipate comfortable zones.
Use Trade and internal transfers to reduce friction
Use Trade to get the asset you need without extra back-and-forths. Use Transfer with internal liquidity to move funds between subaccounts and keep strategy pockets cleanly separated. Dolomite’s docs describe these bricks and why they help.
Keep a minimal log and think in net
Each cycle, note amount, total cost, net. Change one setting at a time. If two complete cycles validate your net, step up size. If not, size down and fix the costliest parameter first.
Compare with Aave and Radiant using the exact same sequence
To get a clear view, replay the very same strategy at small size on Aave and on Radiant. Note slippage, fees, interest, and compare your remaining net. External dashboards can provide context on overall depth and activity if you need it.
Strengths and weaknesses at a glance
Dolomite Strengths
Compact execution borrowing plus swapping plus redeposit, internal transfers across subaccounts, free flash loans, modular approach and pragmatic docs that guide a beginner toward a clean routine. Advantageous when you want to cut execution friction and align your moves with a repeatable method.
Dolomite Watchouts
Less massive liquidity than Aave on certain flagship pairs, need to pick the right network and keep a log of real multichain costs. User-side risk management remains essential as in any DeFi setup.
Aave Strengths
Very deep markets, broad multichain dispersion, strong reputation and stability on major assets. A go-to when sheer depth is the priority.
Aave Limits
A steeper learning curve for beginners and heavier governance processes that come with ecosystem scale.
Radiant Strengths
Omnichain narrative, cross-network mobility, public metrics of cumulative fees and revenue that reflect sustained activity over time.
Radiant Limits
As with any highly multichain protocol, watch for liquidity dispersion and total cost as you move between environments.
Questions to answer before sizing up
Is my collateral liquid enough on the network where I am using it
What is my real borrow cost net of fees and slippage
Does my loop rely on a durable yield spread or on a fragile window
Have I set a fixed cadence for checks and claims
Have I tested the same small-size strategy on Dolomite, Aave, and Radiant to compare my net
Borrowing on Dolomite is not a magic promise, it is a method. The protocol focuses on compressing friction so your decisions are cleaner and your results easier to read. If you keep a margin cushion, track your net, and only size up after two validated cycles, you will turn a simple borrowing feature into a useful routine. Always compare at equal size with Aave and Radiant. Choose the tool that leaves you the most net while giving you the clearest view of risk. That is the only metric that matters over the long run.
