Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov has presented his decentralized protocol’s “master plan” for 2026, right after announcing that the US Securities and Exchange Commission has concluded its four-year investigation into the platform.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Kulechov noted that although 2025 has been the most “successful year” for the platform so far, he believes Aave is still on “day zero compared to what lies ahead.”
As for 2026, the CEO detailed a master plan emphasizing the scaling of the DeFi platform and achieving specific usage targets, such as $1 billion in real-world asset (RWA) deposits.
“Currently, our strategy for next year rests on three main pillars: Aave V4, Horizon, and Aave App,” he stated.
Aave V4 is a significant upgrade expected to introduce notable improvements to the platform’s borrowing and lending pools, user interface, and liquidation parameters, among other features.
In his statement, Kulechov indicated that V4 will be the “backbone of all finance,” highlighting the specialized lending markets that the V4’s Hub and Spoke model will offer.
In this model, the hub represents a unified crosschain liquidity pool serving as the central point for all assets on the protocol, while the spokes denote highly customizable markets that leverage hub liquidity.
“This will enable Aave to manage trillions of dollars in assets, establishing it as the premier option for any institution, fintech, or company seeking access to Aave’s substantial, reliable liquidity,” he remarked, adding:
“In 2026, Aave will host new markets, fresh assets, and integrations that have never existed before in DeFi. We’ll continually engage with fintechs and collaborate closely with the DAO and our partners to progressively scale TVL throughout the year.”
Focusing on the next pillar, Horizon, Aave’s decentralized real-world asset market, the CEO shared goals to bring on “many leading financial institutions” to become a key player in the RWA sector.
“Horizon currently stands at $550M net deposits. In 2026, we aim to rapidly scale this to $1 billion and beyond by partnering with prominent institutional partners like Circle, Ripple, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and others to introduce major global asset classes to Aave,” he stated.
The final component is Aave’s mobile app, launched on the Apple store in mid-November, which Kulechov described as a “trojan horse” aimed at introducing DeFi to the mainstream.
The CEO indicated that the mobile fintech market is a “$2+ trillion dollar industry” that Aave plans to take advantage of by simplifying its complex infrastructure for users, as well as outdoing competitors by providing superior savings products.
Related: Crypto’s ‘super app’ race is on as industry enters aggregation era: Report
“Early next year, we’ll initiate the complete rollout of Aave App and embark on our journey to reach our first million users. This will directly enhance growth for Aave Protocol through an entirely new and untapped market. Aave cannot expand to trillions of dollars without widespread adoption at the product level.”
SEC wraps up four-year investigation
On Tuesday, Kulechov confirmed the closure of the SEC’s four-year investigation into Aave, sharing a letter dated Aug. 12, 2025.
Kulechov expressed that the platform is “relieved to move past this as we enter a new phase where developers can genuinely construct the future of finance.”
Alongside the SEC and master plan announcements, Kulechov also revealed on Tuesday that he had personally acquired $9.8 million in AAVE, outside of the Aave DAO’s suggested buyback initiative.
Magazine: Big questions: Would Bitcoin survive a 10-year power outage?
