defi lending

Aave

Avara

Aave is the largest decentralized money market by TVL, supporting collateralized lending across 12+ chains. Its native GHO stablecoin is over-collateralized by V3 deposits, and the protocol is governed by AAVE-token holders via Aave Governance V3.

Official site Documentation Updated today
Scale
Updated 1d ago
TVL
$25.8B
24h volume
$1.2B
Active markets
16
across V3 chains
GHO supply
$270M
Company

Avara UK Ltd.

Country
United Kingdom
HQ
London
Founded
May 1, 2017
Structure
private
Employees
~110
Key people
  • Stani Kulechov Founder & CEO
Timeline

Timeline

  1. Nov 1, 2017
    ETHLend launches
  2. Sep 1, 2018
    ICO raises $16.2M
  3. Jan 8, 2020
    Aave V1 (rebrand from ETHLend)
  4. Dec 2, 2021
    Aave V3 with cross-chain Portal
  5. Jul 15, 2023
    GHO stablecoin mainnet launch
  6. Apr 12, 2024
    Aave V3 Stability Module
  7. Sep 22, 2025
    Aave V4 mainnet
Funding and investors

Funding and investors

Total raised: $49.0M
Investors
Standard CryptoThree Arrows CapitalParaFiBlockchain CapitalFrameworkDCGDeFiance
Rounds
Sep 1, 2018 ICO $16.2M Public sale
Jul 8, 2020 Series A $3.0M Framework, ParaFi
Oct 15, 2020 Strategic $25.0M Blockchain Capital, Standard Crypto
Products

Products

Own products
  • Aave V3 markets
  • GHO stablecoin
  • Aave Arc (institutional)
  • Lens Protocol (social, 2022)
  • Aave V4 (announced)
Integrations
  • Chainlink (oracles)
  • BlackRock BUIDL
  • PayPal PYUSD
  • Centrifuge (RWA)
  • Lido stETH
Stablecoins and chains

Stablecoins and chains

Stablecoins
usdt usdc dai gho
Chains
ethereum polygon arbitrum optimism base
Security and audits

Security and audits

Bug bounty (max): $1.0M
Audits
  • OpenZeppelin Oct 15, 2024 Aave V3.2 core Report →
  • Trail of Bits May 20, 2023 Aave V3 Portal
  • Certora Mar 15, 2024 Formal verification of V3 markets
  • SigmaPrime Oct 1, 2023 GHO module
Historic incidents
  • !November 2022: bad debt incident from CRV manipulation by Avraham Eisenberg, ~$1.6M deficit covered by DAO treasury.
Risk notes

Risk notes

  • ● Governance attack risk on AAVE token
  • ● Reliance on Chainlink oracles
  • ● Smart contract risk across V3 deployments
Competitors

Competitors

CompoundMorphoSpark ProtocolRadiant
Resources

Resources

Notes

For deeper context on Aave’s role in stablecoin commerce, see the blog and the stablecoins index.