Original Title: Aave Will Win: 2026 Master Plan
Original Author: @StaniKulechov
Translated by: Peggy, BlockBeats
Editor's Note: As DeFi gradually moves out of the early "narrative-driven" stage and towards scaling and institutionalization, Aave is at a critical juncture. This lengthy article written by founder Stani Kulechov is not just a periodic review, but a comprehensive exposition of Aave's future over the next decade and beyond, as regulatory uncertainties gradually dissipate.
With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluding its four-year investigation into the Aave protocol, Aave has crossed the most resource-consuming and uncertain phase in terms of compliance. In this context, Aave's articulation of its role has become increasingly clear: it is no longer just positioned as a leading DeFi lending protocol, but is pointing towards a global on-chain credit layer.
The following is the original text:
I have spent nearly a decade building Aave, long before the concept of DeFi even emerged. Along the way, I have witnessed countless cycles of hype and decline, but our mission has never changed.
At the inception of Aave, the entire DeFi space was worth less than $1 billion; today, Aave alone has a valuation that is over 50 times that amount.
Over the years, many teams have come and gone. Aave Labs has been continuously building for over 7 years, and there are very few teams that can match our long-term track record. We have personally driven and delivered:
- Aave Protocol V1, V2, V3, and the ongoing V4
- Aave's native stablecoin GHO
- A four-year compliance and regulatory battle with the SEC to defend Aave
- Ongoing maintenance of Aave.com and the upcoming Aave Pro
- Cross-chain expansion of GHO
- The first deployment outside of the EVM ecosystem
- Aave App
- Aave documentation system and developer toolkit
And many more works that have yet to be listed.
Today, Aave Protocol has become the largest, most trusted, and most liquid lending protocol in history, standing in an independent track with almost no comparable peers.
Yet, even so, in my view, compared to the territory we are truly about to unfold in the future, we are still at "Day Zero." This article will outline our long-term vision spanning decades: to bring the next trillion-dollar asset into Aave and drive millions of new users to truly go on-chain.
Aave in 2025
2025 will be Aave's most successful year ever.
Our net deposit size once reached $75 billion; even more impressively, since its launch five years ago, Aave has processed a total historical deposit amount of $3.33 trillion, with total loans issued nearing $1 trillion.
In the past one to two years, we have fully embraced the cross-chain world within the Aave ecosystem. Continuing Aave's consistent style, it has now become the only protocol with a TVL exceeding $1 billion across four different networks.
More importantly, in terms of scale, the Aave protocol can now be compared to the top 50 banks in the U.S.—which is the core hub of the global financial system.
These growth achievements have allowed Aave to capture 59% of the DeFi lending market and account for 61% of all active loans in DeFi.
Just this year, the protocol generated $885 million in fee revenue, accounting for 52% of the total fees from all lending protocols, even surpassing the sum of the next five competitors. This sustained revenue from fees has further facilitated a substantial AAVE buyback program.
A DeFi protocol operating at such a scale is unprecedented in the entire industry history.
The market has made its choice through results: Aave is no longer a phase product, but a long-term existing infrastructure.
Next, I would like to discuss Aave Labs' judgments and plans for the coming year.
Looking Ahead to 2026
Currently, our overall strategy for entering the next phase will revolve around three core pillars: Aave V4, Horizon, and Aave App.
Aave V4
Aave V4 will be a key step for Aave towards becoming the "global financial backbone." This is a complete reconstruction of the Aave protocol.
Its core innovation lies in achieving unified liquidity through a Hub & Spoke model. The V4 architecture will replace the current fragmented pool structure, establishing a capital hub on each network; on top of this, highly customizable "spoke modules" can be built to provide dedicated lending markets for different types of assets.
This design will enable Aave to support asset scales of trillions of dollars, becoming the preferred platform for institutions, fintech companies, and various enterprises to access deep and reliable liquidity.
At the same time, we will launch V4 along with a brand new developer experience next year. Over the past few months, Aave Labs has been building a new toolkit aimed at allowing developers to publish and expand products on Aave with unprecedented low barriers.
Entering 2026, Aave will welcome a series of new markets, new assets, and new integrations that have never appeared in the DeFi space before. We will continue to collaborate with fintech companies and work closely with DAOs and ecosystem partners, steadily advancing deployments while gradually expanding TVL.
Horizon
Horizon is a bridge to the next trillion dollars.
Launched earlier this year, it is Aave's dedicated market for institutional-grade real-world assets (RWA). Through Horizon, qualified institutions can use tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds and other credit assets as collateral to borrow stablecoins.
This is a solution specifically designed by Aave Labs for large global financial institutions, capable of meeting their real needs in compliance, risk control, and operations. By providing a secure and efficient on-chain entry for institutional capital, Horizon becomes the core vehicle for bringing traditional finance's massive capital scale onto the chain.
Horizon will bring numerous top financial institutions into the Aave ecosystem in ways that were previously unattainable, driving Aave's expansion towards an asset base exceeding $500 trillion.
In a very short time, Horizon has grown to become the largest and fastest-growing RWA collateral lending platform. We do not believe this growth momentum will slow down in the short term.
Currently, Horizon's net deposit size is approximately $550 million. By 2026, our goal is to rapidly expand this number to $1 billion or more. To achieve this, we will deepen our collaborations with leading institutional partners such as Circle, Ripple, Franklin Templeton, and VanEck, bringing more global asset classes into Aave.
If Aave wants to play a truly core role in the entire financial system, it must first incorporate stocks, ETFs, funds, real estate and mortgages, commodities, receivables, as well as bonds and fixed-income assets into the on-chain lending system. Horizon is the key layout to achieve this goal.
Aave App
Aave App is the "Trojan Horse" to the next million users. It is the flagship mobile application of the Aave protocol, aimed at truly bringing DeFi to everyone.
The protocol itself is a highly complex financial system, while the mission of Aave App is to shield this complexity and provide an intuitive, user-friendly product experience to address the real needs in the current economic environment.
Aave App is deeply integrated with Push—this is our global, zero-fee stablecoin deposit and withdrawal channel, covering over 70% of global capital markets. This will make Aave App the product with the best cash-to-DeFi experience in the market.
Many people do not realize that mobile fintech itself is a $20 trillion industry. Applications like CashApp and Venmo have tens of millions of users, but they have almost no real product capability in "savings"; whereas Aave App has the potential to fundamentally change the way people save.
At the beginning of next year, we will officially launch Aave App and embark on the journey to the first million users. This will inject growth momentum into the Aave protocol directly through a previously under-reached new market. Without product-level scaling adoption, Aave cannot expand to the trillion-dollar level.
Maintaining a clear stance, continuous innovation, and freely designing products is the most beneficial path for Aave.
At Aave Labs, we always focus on three things: bringing the next trillion-dollar asset on-chain; onboarding millions of new users into DeFi; and ensuring $AAVE wins.
This vision requires us to build not a "substitute" for the traditional financial system, but a structurally superior financial infrastructure.
More importantly, the long-term success of Aave Labs is highly aligned with that of the Aave protocol. Alignment is not just a verbal statement, but is reflected in actions:
Aave Labs and its employees are the largest holders of AAVE.
Everything we build is aimed at strengthening the protocol's core fee capture mechanism, with all revenues belonging to the DAO.
Aave Labs has delivered more products for Aave than any other team.
For the past 8 years, I have invested countless hours continuously driving Aave's growth—whether through product innovation, global business development, or organizing numerous community events.
By the way, I bought another $10 million worth of AAVE on-chain yesterday.
I have also seen various discussions in the DAO forum. I want to be very clear: no one cares more about Aave than I do. Open discussion is a feature of DeFi governance, not a sign of "misalignment."
Aave, as the Global Credit Layer
Our long-term goal spanning decades is to build the foundational credit layer of the on-chain economy. At Aave Labs, we believe that any form of value in the future can be tokenized, used as productive collateral, or lent without intermediaries.
In such a future, Aave is the foundation of everything, serving as the base liquidity layer upon which the next generation of financial products and services will be built.
Everything we have done in the past few years has been laying the groundwork for this goal that still lies ahead.
Here, we sincerely thank Aave DAO, numerous service providers, and countless developers who have contributed to Aave. This is a true collective action, and we are grateful for the ecosystem that has grown around the protocol. Aave Labs is ready to face the challenges of the next phase, and we will always prioritize Aave's long-term interests as our first principle.
Building in a public environment is not easy; governance and DeFi itself are challenging. Aave is one of the few DeFi protocols that has withstood the test of time, which is what makes it unique. Innovation must always be prioritized—this is also the reason why the Aave ecosystem can continue to succeed.
But now is not the time to celebrate… we have only just begun.
Aave will win.
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