Aave founder outlines key focuses for 2026: Aave V4, Horizon, and mobile platforms

Original Title: Aave Will Win: 2026 Master Plan
Original Author: @StaniKulechov
Translation: Peggy, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: As DeFi gradually moves beyond its "narrative-driven" early stage and heads towards scale and institutionalization, Aave is at a critical juncture. This long-form article, personally written by founder Stani Kulechov, is not just a periodic review, but a comprehensive exposition of Aave's vision for the next decade and beyond, especially as regulatory uncertainties begin to dissipate.

With the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) concluding its four-year investigation into the Aave protocol, Aave has crossed the most draining and uncertain phase in terms of compliance. Against this backdrop, Aave's self-positioning has become increasingly clear: it is no longer just a leading DeFi lending protocol, but is aiming to become the global on-chain credit layer.

The following is the original text:

I have spent almost a full decade building Aave, long before the concept of DeFi even existed. Along the way, I have witnessed countless cycles of hype and downturns, but our mission has never changed.

When Aave was founded, the entire DeFi sector was less than $1 billion in size; today, Aave alone is more than 50 times that scale.

Over the years, many teams have come and gone. Aave Labs has been building for over 7 years, and there are very few teams with a comparable long-term track record. We have personally pushed forward 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, defending Aave

-Ongoing maintenance of Aave.com and the upcoming launch of Aave Pro

-Cross-chain expansion of GHO

-First deployment outside the EVM ecosystem

-Aave App

-Aave documentation system and developer toolkit

And much more that has not been listed here

Today, Aave Protocol has become the largest, most trusted, and most liquid lending protocol ever, occupying a unique track with almost no comparable peers.

But even so, in my view, compared to the territory we are truly about to unfold, we are still at "Day Zero." This article will outline our long-term vision spanning decades: to bring the next trillion-dollar level of assets into Aave and to drive millions of new users truly on-chain.

Aave in 2025

2025 is the most successful year in Aave's history.

Our net deposit size once reached $75 billion; even more impressive, since its launch five years ago, Aave has processed a total historical deposit volume of $3.33 trillion, with total loans issued approaching $1 trillion.

In the past one to two years, we have fully embraced the cross-chain world within the Aave ecosystem. In keeping with Aave's consistent style, it has now become the only protocol with TVL exceeding $1 billion on four different networks.

More importantly, in terms of scale, the Aave protocol can now be compared to the top 50 banks in the United States—which is the core hub of the global financial system.

These growth achievements have enabled Aave to capture 59% of the DeFi lending market and to support 61% of all active loans in DeFi.

This year alone, the protocol generated $885 million in fee income, accounting for 52% of all lending protocol fees, even surpassing the combined total of the next five largest competitors. The sustained income from these fees has further facilitated a substantial AAVE buyback program.

A DeFi protocol operating at such a scale is unprecedented in the entire industry's history.

The market has already made its choice with results: Aave is no longer a product of a particular phase, but a long-term infrastructure.

Next, I want to talk about Aave Labs' outlook and plans for the coming year.

Looking Ahead to 2026

At present, our overall strategy for entering the next stage 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 base." This is a complete overhaul 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, making it the preferred platform for institutions, fintech companies, and various enterprises to access deep and reliable liquidity.

At the same time, we will launch V4 together with a brand-new developer experience next year. For the past few months, Aave Labs has been building a new toolset, aiming to allow developers to launch and expand products on Aave with unprecedented ease.

Entering 2026, Aave will usher in a series of new markets, new assets, and new integrations that have never before appeared in the DeFi sector. We will also continue to collaborate with fintech companies and work closely with DAOs and ecosystem partners, steadily expanding TVL while advancing deployments.

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. Treasuries and other credit assets as collateral to borrow stablecoins.

This is a solution specifically built by Aave Labs for large global financial institutions, meeting their real needs in compliance, risk control, and operations. By providing a secure and efficient institutional-grade on-chain capital gateway, Horizon becomes the core vehicle for bringing the vast capital of traditional finance on-chain.

Horizon will bring numerous top financial institutions into the Aave ecosystem in ways previously impossible, and drive Aave to expand towards an asset base of over $500 trillion.

In a very short time, Horizon has grown into the largest and fastest-growing RWA collateralized lending platform. We do not believe this growth momentum will slow down in the short term.

Currently, Horizon's net deposit size is about $550 million. By 2026, our goal is to rapidly expand this figure to $1 billion or more. To achieve this, we will deepen cooperation 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 be the first to bring stocks, ETFs, funds, real estate and mortgages, commodities, accounts receivable, 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, aiming to truly bring DeFi to everyone.

The protocol itself is a highly complex financial system, and the mission of Aave App is to shield users from this complexity, providing an intuitive and easy-to-use product experience to address real needs in today's economic environment.

Aave App is deeply integrated with Push—our global, zero-fee stablecoin on/off-ramp, covering more than 70% of the world's capital markets. This will make Aave App the product with the best cash-to-DeFi experience on the market.

Many people do not realize that mobile fintech itself is an industry worth over $2 trillion. Apps like CashApp and Venmo have tens of millions of users, but have almost no real product capability when it comes to "savings"; Aave App has the potential to fundamentally change the way people save.

Early next year, we will officially launch Aave App and embark on the journey to our first million users. This will directly inject growth momentum into the Aave protocol through a new market that has never been fully tapped before. Without large-scale adoption at the product level, Aave cannot scale 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; bringing millions of new users into DeFi; making $AAVE win.

This vision requires us to build not a "replacement" 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 to strengthen the protocol's core fee capture mechanism, with all proceeds belonging to the DAO

The number of products delivered by Aave Labs for Aave exceeds any other team

For 8 years, I have invested countless hours continuously driving Aave's growth—whether in 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 make it 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 over decades is to build the foundational credit layer of the on-chain economy. At Aave Labs, we believe that in the future, any form of value can be tokenized, used as productive collateral, or borrowed and lent without intermediaries.

In such a future, Aave is the base of everything, the foundational liquidity layer upon which the next generation of financial products and services are built.

Everything we have done in the past few years has been laying the foundation 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 effort, and we are grateful for the ecosystem that has grown around the protocol. Aave Labs is ready to face the next stage of challenges, and we will always put Aave's long-term interests first.

Building in a public environment is not easy; governance and DeFi itself are difficult. Aave is one of the few DeFi protocols that has stood the test of time, and that is its uniqueness. Innovation must always come first—this is also the reason for the continued success of the Aave ecosystem.

But now is not the time to celebrate... we are just getting started.

Aave will win.

[Original Link]