The Defiant - DeFi Podcast Will Aave’s New Plan Change DeFi Forever? | Stani Kulechov Explains
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Mar 13, 2026 
Stani Kulechov, co-founder of Aave and DeFi builder behind Aave v4, discusses a major proposal to redirect protocol revenue to the AAVE token. He explains governance dynamics and defends voting integrity. Stani breaks down Aave v4’s hub-and-spoke design, liquidity bootstrapping, B2B credit lines, and plans to support tokenized real-world assets like solar farms and GPUs.
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Why Aave Is Moving To A Token Centric Model
- Aave will win centralizes value capture by redirecting 100% of product revenue to the Aave DAO to simplify a dual token-equity model.
- Stani argues this removes value leakage between Aave Labs and the token, aligning incentives for growth and talent capture.
How Aave V4 Expands Revenue Opportunities
- Aave V4's architecture is designed to expand revenue surfaces by enabling modular, non-ERC20 collateral and reinvesting float into low-risk assets.
- Stani says these features let Aave tap new markets like prime brokerage and improve pool returns via T-bill reinvestment.
Unbundle High Level Direction From Budget Detail
- Split high-level temp check proposals from detailed RFC/AIP budgets so the community can refine deliverables before on-chain activation.
- Stani plans more granularity at RFC/AIP stage and may remove V4 from the temp-check to separate economic alignment from execution funding.