Aave is not only important for DeFi. It is the largest lending protocol in the sector by far, with over $50 billion in assets deposited in its markets. It’s a balance sheet that would place it roughly in the top 50 U.S. banks by assets if it were a traditional institution.
Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave and developer of Aave Labs, has a simple version of what he’s building: “Aave will be the backbone of the entire credit,” he said. Not just leverage for cryptocurrency traders, but also mortgages, credit cards, consumer and corporate loans, and even sovereign debt, with DeFi running quietly in the background.
The road there runs on two lanes. On the consumer side, the upcoming Aave app, now listed in Apple’s App Store, aims to become a savings account for average investors. Users see an interface closer to that of a neobank; Under the hood, deposits are funneled into Aave’s on-chain lending markets – a textbook “DeFi mullet” game where a familiar Web2 interface masks the complex blockchain and DeFi engine on the back end.
Then, there is the institutional side and the burgeoning real-world tokenized asset space. Aave’s Horizon, which debuted in August, offers regulated players a marketplace to borrow stablecoins on their tokenized assets 24/7 while staying within compliance lines. It has grown to a roughly $600 million fund despite the cryptocurrency headwinds of recent months.
As the world is migrating to chain and traditional financial rails and blockchain rails become increasingly intertwined, Aave is positioned to sit near the center of that flow.
