AAVE

2023

October 19: Users can now switch tokens directly on the app

October 19: $1M bug bounty with Immunefi

October 5: Paraswap smart contract adaptor enabled on Base chain

• Enabling repayment with collateral, collateral switch, and debt switch.

September 29: Aave Governance V2 to V3 activation plans published

September 23: MetisDAO incentive program goes live on Aave V3

• 100,000 $METIS tokens have been designated to bolster liquidity pools.

September 5: Debt Switch and Withdraw & Switch introduced

• Debt Switch — seamlessly switch borrow positions.
• Withdraw & Switch — a withdraw that ends in your choice of asset

August 22: Aave V3 launches on Base chain

August 12: GSM Code becomes public

July 20: The first GHOAave liquidity pools go live

July 15: GHOAave successfully launched on the Ethereum mainnet

• $GHO is the only decentralized, overcollateralized stablecoin native to the Aave Protocol

June 21: $stkAAVE upgraded

• Redeem and restake AAVE rewards in a single transaction. Save on fees, time, and avoid hassle.

June 6: Integration with Enyzme Finance.

• Enzyme Finance ensure operational safety and streamline the management of digital assets.

May 26: AAVE offers hackathon bounties at ETHPrague totalling $10k.

• Best GHO Hack.
• Best use of Aave with Optimism.
• Best Governance Hack.

May 9: AAVE v3 lending market goes live on Metis network.

May 4: AAVE V3 deployed on the Scroll Alpha testnet.

April 21: Integration of Balancer’s boosted pools on AAVE v3.

April 13: Dev docs for AAVE v3 published.

April 13: Dev docs for GHO is released for its first hackathon.

March 23: AAVE DAO receives 2,704,175 ARB tokens from the Arbitrum Foundation.

March 18: Rescue Mission Phase 1 Long executed .

• Activation of Aave rescue mission Phase 1, Level 2 (Long) Executor part.
• Since the birth of the Aave ecosystem, multiple people have sent tokens by mistake to incorrect addresses.
• AAVE has come up with a plan to “rescue” those funds, providing the affected people a way to recover them.

March 17: Improved delegation feature shipped.

• Users can now:
  • View who you have delegated to.
  • Delegate both voting and proposition power in one transaction.
  • Revoke delegation.

March 8: AAVE deployed to Sepolia Testnet.

March 3: $GHO Genesis parameters proposal.

• Borrow Rate (BR)
  • BR 2% to 2.5%.
• stkAAVE Discount Rate (DR)
  • DR 25% T=4 max 25% of GHO supply for stakers.
• Facilitator Bucket Capacity
  • Minimum of 50M or 25% of active borrows on V3 Ethereum Market.
• DEX liquidity pool 50/50 GHO/3Pool
  • Need to seed DEX liquidity ⇒ Target stable liquidity pool of $15M GHO.

February 20: $LUSD enabled on AAVE v3.

• $LUQD is Liquity Protocol’s stablecoin.

February 8: GHO Stablecoin Testnet Launched on Ethereum Goerli Testnet.

• GHO is Aave’s native decentralized and overcollateralized stablecoin.
• Three additional audits have been completed by Open Zeppelin, SigmaPrime and ABDK.
• The next step is to launch GHO on Ethereum mainnet if certain requirements are met, including:
  • Changes required to stkAAVE to enable GHOs discount rate to be implemented.
  • Snapshot for Ethereum V3 Facilitator and FlashMinter Facilitator.
  • Initial Parameters Proposal and Bucket Cap and Borrow Rate Framework.
  • Facilitator Framework.
  • Bug Bounty.
  • Research.
  • GHO implementation AIPs.

2022

August 4: Optimism Liquidity Mining launched.

• 90-day duration, 5M OP tokens to be distributed.  
• Liquidity Mining ended October 31, 2022.

July 17: Harmony ONE and WONE (wrapped ONE) supply and borrow limits reduced.

• Response to Harmony One bridge exploit.

March 16: Aave v3 launches.

• A curated list of bridges is used to make transferring Aave assets crosschain easy.
• High Efficiency Mode or “E-Mode” allows for more borrowing power for assets in same category, increasing capital efficiency.  
• Isolation Mode: Newly listed assets have collateral and borrowing limit, can only borrow and lend assets of the same category.
• Gas costs were reduced 20-25%.
• Redesigned app and Aave dashboard deployed to IPFS.
• V3 was audited by Sigma Prime, Trail of Bits, Open Zeppelin, ABDK, PeckShield and Cretora.  

2021

August: Crosschain governance introduced.

• Crosschain governance audited by MixBytes.
• Aave Front End interface goes open source, the community can help improve UI.

May: Crypto market downturn.

• Despite some assets listed on Aave falling 70%+, liquidity grew 68% in May.  
• Aave users on Polygon grows to 29,000.  
• Liquidity grows to $21.5B, with $12.6B on Aave v2, and $7.9B on Polygon.

April: Aave surpasses $14B market size.

March: Aave surpasses $6B market size, AMM poll over $60m.

• AMM pool lets users use Uniswap v2 and Balancer LP tokens as collateral.

2020

December 3: Aave v2 launches on ETH Mainnet.

• Collateral swaps introduced: users can swap collateral while it is deposited.
• Users can now pay the loan off with collateral directly.
• Flash loans for liquidations were introduced, giving more opportunities to liquidators who don’t have as much capital.
• Batch Flash Loans introduced: Users could combine flash loan transactions of different assets into one.
• Debt Tokenization introduced: this makes it easy to track debt and also to manage debt with cold wallets.
• Future plans for Credit Delegation laid out.
• Gas costs are reduced up to 50% in some cases.
• Stable and Variable rate borrowing, with the ability to switch between the two.
• Ability to access Aave through other front ends, wallets, and platforms.
• Increased collateral capacity for USDC, BAT, LINK, UNI, WBTC, and WETH.
• Cheaper stablecoin borrowing rates below optimal utilization.
• Audited by Certora, MixBytes; CertiK, ConsenSys Diligence, and PeckShield.

October 2: Token migration goes live.

• Migration was actually voted in by the community as the first-ever AIP vote that passed.
• “Safety Mining”: AAVE token holders could stake tokens in the protocol Safety Module (SM) for Safety Incentives (SI) in return for helping to secure protocol funds.
• Future plans for staking announced: users can stake single-sided AAVE or AAVE+ETH BPT LP (Balancer Pool Token) for AAVE and BAL (balancer protocol native token) rewards.
• Protocol keys were handed over to community governance.

August 13: Aave governance goes live on testnet.

• Includes AIPs (Aave Improvement Proposals) followed by voting process.

July 9: Token swap from LEND to AAVE announced.

• Market size reaches $500m.

July 7: Credit Delegation implemented.

• Users could take out loans, and then “delegate” the loaned amount to another party through Aave.  

June 10: Aave reaches $100m market size.

January 8: Aave protocol launches on Ethereum Mainnet, with new features:

• aTokens, which are pegged 1-1 with original tokens but increase in value, similar to liquid staked tokens.
• Stable Rate interest model; these were fixed-rate loans to could be rebalanced later on.
• Perpetual loans, which allowed users to take out loans without repayment schedules or time limits.  
• Aave Oracle, powered by Chainlink, was used to secure 15 crypto price feeds for Aave.
• Protocol fees are used to burn LEND tokens.  
• Fees: 0.025% on loan origination, or 0.35% for flash loans.  
• 70% of fees go to lenders, 30% to protocol.

2019

October: Aave v1 launches on Kovan testnet.  

• Included flashloans, loans that could be taken out without collateral and repaid in the same block.
• Introduced rate switching feature.

Summer: Decentralized Lending Pools (DLPs) concept was introduced.

February 19: ETHLend Baiji launches on ETH Mainnet.   

• Users could borrow against BTC and DAI as collateral.  
• Aave Pay was introduced; users could use LEND tokens or other cryptocurrencies to pay IRL expenses.
• The team continues to rework and design the Aave model.

January 9: Team expands operations to London.

• London had the biggest FinTech scene at the time. 
• The goal was to reach out to more institutional investors.

The team continues to rework and design the Aave model.

2018

December: ETHLend Baiji (at this point, a subsidiary powered by Aave) launches on testnet.

September 18: ETHLend rebrands to Aave.

• Switched to liquidity pool model, as the initial peer-to-peer lending model had issues with finding counterparties for loans.
• Liquidity in DeFi was increasing, making the shift to the new model easier.
• Users would supply funds or deposit collateral in liquidity pools that people could use to take out loans; this means people didn’t have to individually borrow or lend with counterparties.
• Mika Soyring joins as CFO, Ville Valkonen joins as CCO.
• Announced new products including:
  • Aave Gaming, a blockchain gaming studio.
  • Aave Clearing, an OTC trading desk for institutional investors.
  • Aave Pocket, a blockchain-based payment processing system.

2017

• The idea behind Aave was initially formed in late 2016.
• Project founded by Stani Kulechov, first known as ETHLend.
• Aimed to build a decentralized, peer-to-peer lending platform.
• Initially planned to use a peer-to-peer lending model where users would lend and borrow directly with each other.
• The team thought this was better than using liquidity pools, as there was low liquidity in DeFi at the time.
• Raised $16.2 via ICO.
• 1 billion LEND tokens sold, the team held 300 million tokens (now called AAVE tokens).