Aave's founder described his focus orientation for 2026: Aave V4, Horizon and his mobile end
Original title:Ave Will Win: 2026 Master Plan
Original by: @StaniKulechev
Original by Peggy, Block Beats
The editor presses: Aave is at a key node in the early stages of DeFi’s “dissemination-driven” movement towards scale and institutionalization. This long paper, written by the founder Stani Kulechov himself, is not just a stylistic review, but a holistic account of Aave's next decade or longer, after regulatory uncertainty has gradually subsided。
As the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluded its four-year investigation of the Aave Agreement, Aave crossed the most exhausting and uncertain stage of compliance. In this context, Aave's role is becoming clearer: it is no longer just the head of the DeFi lending agreement, but the global credit chain。
The following is the original text:
I spent almost 10 years building aave, far before DeFi had come up with the concept. Over the course of our journey, we have seen countless rounds of debut, but our mission has never changed。
Aave was created on a scale of less than $1 billion in the entire DeFi field; today, the size of the family is more than 50 times that of the year。
Many teams have come and gone over the years. Aave Labs has been building for more than seven years, and there are few teams that really match our long-term resumes. We pushed and delivered:
-Aave Protocol V1, V2, V3, and moving V4
- Aave, original stabilizer, GHO
- Four years of compliance and regulation game with SEC to defend Aave
-Aave.com's ongoing maintenance and upcoming Aave Pro
-GHO CROSS-CHAIN EXTENSION
- FIRST NON-EVM DEPLOYMENT
- Ave App
-Aave, Document System and Developer Toolkit
And more unlisted work
Today, Aave Protocol has become the largest, most trusted and highly liquid lending agreement ever made, in an independent track with virtually no comparable audience。
But even so, it seems to me that we are still on "Zero Day" compared to the real future. This article will outline our long-term vision across decades: to introduce the next trillion-dollar class of assets into Aave, and to push millions of new levels of users into the chain。
Aave in 2025
2025 was the most successful year ever for Aave。
Our net deposits once reached $75 billion; and even more impressive, since Aave came online five years ago, the cumulative amount of historical deposits processed has reached $3.33 trillion, with loans disbursed to a total of close to $1 trillion。
In the past one to two years, we have embraced the cross-chain in the Aave ecology. To continue Aave's usual style, it's now the only protocol in four different networks with more than $1 billion on TVL。
More importantly, in volume terms, the Aave agreement is now comparable to the top 50 banks in the United States – the central hub of the global financial system。
These growth results enabled Aave to take up 59% of DeFi's lending market and to carry 61% of DeFi's total active lending。
THIS YEAR ALONE, THE AGREEMENT GENERATED $885 MILLION IN FEES, REPRESENTING 52 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL FEES FOR ALL LENDING-TYPE AGREEMENTS, EVEN EXCEEDING THE SUM OF THE LAST FIVE COMPETITORS. THE CONTINUING REVENUE FROM THESE FEES HAS FURTHER CONTRIBUTED TO THE SIZEABLE AAVE BUY-BACK PLAN。
A DeFi agreement that runs on such a scale is unprecedented throughout the history of the industry。
The market has chosen with results: Aave is no longer a phased product, but a long-standing infrastructure。
Next, I want to talk about Aave Labs' judgment and planning for next year。
Outlook 2026
So far, our overall strategy for the next phase will be structured around three core pillars: Aave V4, Horizon, Aave App
Aave V4
Aave V4 will be a key step towards the global financial base. It's a complete reconstruction of the Aave agreement。
Its core innovation lies in the harmonization of mobility through the Hub & Spoke (junction-radiation) model. The V4 structure will replace the current fragmented capital pool structure, with a capital hub (Hub) on each network; on this basis, a highly customized "Spokes" can be constructed to provide an exclusive lending market for different types of assets。
This design will give Aave the ability to carry trillions of dollars in asset size and become the preferred platform for institutions, financial technology companies and firms to access depth and reliable liquidity。
At the same time, we'll launch V4 next year with a whole new development experience. Over the past few months, Aave Labs has been building a new tool system with the goal of having developers publish and expand products above Aave at unprecedented low thresholds。
In 2026, Aave will usher in a series of new markets, new assets and new integrations that have never existed before in the DeFi field. We will also continue to work with the financial science and technology company and work closely with the DAO and ecological partners to scale up the TVL while steadily advancing deployment。
Horizon
Horizon, a bridge to the next trillion dollars。
It was launched earlier this year as the exclusive market for Aave for real world assets at the institutional level. Through Horizon, eligible institutions can borrow securitized United States Treasury bonds and other credit-type assets as collateral。
This is the solution of Aave Labs, designed specifically for large financial institutions around the globe, to meet their real needs at the compliance, control and operation levels. By providing a secure and efficient institutional-level financial uplink, Horizon became the central vehicle for bringing the large capital of traditional finance into the chain。
Horizon will introduce many top-level financial institutions into the Aave ecology in ways that were previously unattainable, and promote the expansion of Aave ' s asset base to over $500 trillion。
In a very short time, Horizon has grown into the largest and fastest-growing RWA mortgage lending platform. We do not believe that this growth will slow in the short term。
At present, Horizon ' s net deposit is approximately $550 million. By 2026, our goal is to rapidly expand that figure to $1 billion or more. To this end, we will deepen our cooperation with leading institutional partners, such as Circle, Ripple, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and introduce more asset classes at the global level into Aave。
If Aave is to play a truly central role in the financial system as a whole, he must take the lead in bringing stock, ETF, funds, real estate and mortgages, commodities, receivables, and bonds and fixed-income assets into the chain lending system. And Horizon, the key to achieving this goal。
Aave App
Aave App, the Trojan Horse that leads to the next million-degree user. It's the Aave protocol's flagship motion application, the goal is to bring DeFi really to everyone。
The agreement itself is a highly complex financial system, and it is the mission of Aave App to block these complexities and provide an intuitive, easy-to-use product experience to address the real needs of the current economic environment。
Aave App is deeply integrated with Push -- this is our global, zero-cost, stable currency access, covering over 70 percent of the global capital markets. This will make Aave App the best product in the market for DeFi experience in cash。
Many do not realize that mobile finance technology is itself an industry of more than $2 trillion. Applications like Cashapp, Venmo have tens of millions of users, but little real product capacity in the matter of "saving," and Aave App has the potential to fundamentally change the way people save。
Early next year, we will officially launch Aave App and begin the journey towards the first million users. This will directly inject growth dynamics into the Aave agreement through a new market that has never been fully touched before. Without product-level scale-up, Aave could not have expanded to trillions of dollars。
The most advantageous path for Aave is to maintain a clear position, sustain innovation and design products freely。
In Aave Labs, we've been focusing on three things: bringing the next trillion-dollar class of assets into the chain; bringing millions of new users into DeFi; and letting $AAVE win
This vision requires that we build not “alternatives” to the traditional financial system, but rather a more structured financial infrastructure。
More importantly, Aave Labs is highly consistent with the long-term success of the Aave agreement. Alignment is not an oral statement, but rather an action:
Aave Labs and his staff are the biggest holders of AAVE
ALL OF OUR PRODUCTS ARE DESIGNED TO STRENGTHEN THE PROTOCOL'S CORE FEE CAPTURE MECHANISM, THE PROCEEDS OF WHICH BELONG TO DAO
Aave Labs delivered more products than any other team for Aave
Over the past eight years, I've invested countless hours in sustaining Aave's growth -- whether it be product innovation, global business expansion, or organizing a lot of community activities
AND BY THE WAY, YESTERDAY I BOUGHT ANOTHER $10 MILLION AAVE ON THE CHAIN
I also saw the discussions in the DAO forum. Let me be very clear: no one cares more about Aave than I do. Open discussion is a feature of DeFi governance, not an expression of "incoherence"。
Aave, as a global credit system
Our long-term goal over the decades is to build the base of the economy on the chain. In Aave Labs, it appears that any form of future value can be monetized, used as a productive collateral or borrowed without an intermediary。
In this future, Aave is the base of everything, the base of liquidity that the next generation of financial products and services will build on。
All we have done over the past few years is to lay the groundwork for this goal, which remains ahead。
Here, we thank Aave DAO, many service providers and countless developers who contributed to Aave. This is a true collective action, and we are grateful for the ecology around which the agreement has grown. Aave Labs is ready to face the next stage of the challenge, and we will always take Aave's long-term interests as the first principle。
It is not easy to build in an open environment, and governance and DeFi themselves are difficult. Aave is one of the few DeFi agreements that have stood the test of time, and that's what's unique about it. Innovation must always be at the forefront -- that's why Aave's ecology is sustainable。
But now is not the time to celebrate... we are just beginning。
Aave will win。
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