Aave founder Stani Kulechov has outlined a multi-decade “master plan” to transform Aave into the foundational credit layer of the onchain economy, targeting trillions of dollars in assets and millions of new users. The strategy is built around three pillars: Aave V4, which introduces a unified hub-and-spoke liquidity architecture designed for institutional-scale markets; Horizon, a compliance-aligned lending venue for tokenized Treasurys and other real-world assets; and the Aave App, a consumer-facing product intended to rival traditional fintech platforms and drive mass adoption.

Kulechov highlighted Aave’s current dominance in DeFi lending, citing trillions of dollars in lifetime deposits and loans, strong fee generation, and majority market share. At the same time, the roadmap was released amid escalating governance tensions between Aave Labs and the Aave DAO over protocol control and revenue capture, including proposals to strengthen the DAO’s leverage over the core development team. The announcement also followed confirmation that the U.S. SEC has ended its four-year investigation into Aave without enforcement action, which Kulechov described as an important validation of DeFi’s durability and future role in global finance.