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