10 Years In, Here's Why Aave's Founder Isn’t Done Betting on Ethereum - Ep. 878

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Tech News, Business News

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ethereum just turned 10, and Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, one of the earliest and most influential lending protocols in DeFi, is more bullish on the OG layer 1 blockchain than ever. In this wide-ranging interview, he reflects on Ethereum’s resilience, explains why Aave is still laser-focused on it despite the rise of competitors like Solana, and gives us a preview of Aave V4 and its institutional play, Horizon. If you want to understand where DeFi is going, you’ll want to hear what Stani has to say. Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com Thank you to our sponsors! Focal by FalconX Xapo Bank Guest: Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave and ETHLend Links: Recent episode of Unchained with EF’s co-ED Tomasz: As Ethereum Turns 10, Where Is the Foundation Focused Next? Unchained: Aave Labs Unveils V4 Upgrade Proposal, Introducing a Unified Liquidity Layer and 'Fuzzy' Rates DefiLlama: Aave stats Reuters: JPMorgan considers offering loans backed by clients' cryptocurrency holdings Timestamps: 🎬 0:00 Intro 🎉 4:58 What Ethereum’s 10-year milestone means to Stani 🏗️ 9:09 How Aave became the top lending protocol on Ethereum 🧐 13:02 Why Stani has been critical of the Ethereum Foundation 🏦 17:16 How TradFi institutions could quietly run on Aave infrastructure 💸 25:08 What Stani thinks about the complaints over Ethereum revenues and fees 🌉 30:27 Why Aave hasn’t launched on Solana 💼 35:32 How Ethereum treasury companies are putting Aave to work 🔧 41:15 What Aave V4 is bringing to the protocol and why it matters 🌍 48:18 How Horizon could bridge DeFi and real-world assets 🤝 50:43 Why DeFi might thrive even as TradFi and fintech move onchain 🗳️ 57:57 Whether DAO governance is fundamentally flawed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm more bullish on Ethereum than anything else. And I think the new strategy of actually
0:06.0	making kind of like a beefed up L1 is actually quite interesting because that helps to scale
0:14.1	more on the main net while still having these more specialized altos.
0:22.7	Hey everyone. Hey, everyone.
0:24.1	Continuing our coverage of Ethereum's 10th anniversary, today's guest is Stani Kulichoff, founder of Avey, one of the OG lending protocols in DFI.
0:33.2	Stani reflected on Ethereum's evolution over the past decade to what he sees coming next for
0:37.5	D5.
0:38.5	I found it remarkable just how bullish Donnie is on Ethereum, despite all the criticism
0:42.9	of the last year and change.
0:44.8	He has full conviction in Ethereum as still being the best place to build, and that's why
0:49.0	he's especially excited for Ethereum to scale the L1 while leaving room for specialized
0:53.5	L2s.
0:54.9	In fact, he pointed out that when looking at growth charts, the biggest network where
0:59.0	Avey has grown the most is Ethereum Mainnet.
1:02.3	So Avi's core business is there, and they're doubling down on that and making sure that
1:06.7	they're successful on Ethereum L1 and that they onboard real-world assets there as collateral
1:12.1	for institutions. And for AVE, Solis ecosystem so far hasn't brought in the kind of players
1:18.8	that Avey would like to work with. What also stood out to me was his vision for how TradFi,
1:23.9	FinTech, banks, and other centralized entities will have front ends and have distribution,
1:30.2	but be powered by Defi in the background. It's a compelling vision. Software that's more trustworthy,
1:36.7	secure, and reliable than the current opaque system. At one point, he said,
1:41.7	OnChane does it better, which I feel like will be conventional wisdom in the future.
	...

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