Aave to bring dedicated credit market for tokenized assets to Avalanche

The upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub will enable institutions to borrow against tokenized assets with inaugural support for USA₮, Tether’s dollar-backed stablecoin.

Sept 16, 2026; 9:00 AM ET – Aave, the world’s leading decentralized lending protocol, today announced plans for the upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche, a high-performance blockchain built for business, with inaugural support for USA₮, Tether’s dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., which will enable institutions to borrow against tokenized assets without selling their underlying positions.

Built on the Aave V4 deployment already live on Avalanche, the upcoming RWA Hub will leverage Aave’s Hub & Spoke architecture to create a dedicated credit market on Avalanche where institutional participants will be able to use tokenized assets as collateral to borrow USA₮ without selling their underlying assets. The upcoming RWA Hub will be one of the first specialized markets enabled by Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture, demonstrating how specialized credit markets for new asset classes can benefit from shared liquidity and tailored risk frameworks.

“Aave V4 was designed to enable new credit markets at internet scale,” said Stani Kulechov, Founder of Aave Labs. “Avalanche combines a mature Aave lending market with a rapidly growing ecosystem for tokenized assets. The upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche moves tokenized assets beyond issuance and into credit markets, putting them to work as collateral.”

The tokenized real-world asset market has risen 40% year-to-date, surpassing $51 billion in market capitalization as financial institutions increasingly bring traditional assets onchain. As those assets move beyond issuance and transfer, demand is growing for infrastructure that enables their use as collateral in onchain lending markets. With more than $3.4 billion in tokenized assets already on Avalanche, the ecosystem is becoming a hub for institutional onchain finance. Aave V4 extends that foundation by enabling those assets to move from passive holdings into productive collateral that can support borrowing and liquidity without requiring institutions to sell their underlying positions.

“USA₮ was built to give institutions a trusted digital dollar they can use with confidence across the financial markets of tomorrow,” said Bo Hines, CEO of Tether USA₮. “Bringing USA₮ to Aave V4 on Avalanche expands how institutions can access dollar liquidity onchain. As real-world assets continue to move onchain, we see USA₮ becoming the preferred digital dollar for institutions borrowing, settling, and transacting across those markets.”

Through Aave V4, each dedicated credit market will operate with its own collateral frameworks and parameters to help isolate risk while remaining connected to Aave’s deep liquidity network. This will allow markets to be designed around the distinct characteristics of different tokenized assets, including Treasuries, money market funds, private credit, real estate, and corporate bonds, while preserving access to shared liquidity and capital efficiency. USA₮ will add a federally regulated digital-dollar borrowing asset to the framework, giving institutions another source of onchain dollar liquidity.

The upcoming RWA Hub builds on years of success on Avalanche, where Aave has established one of its strongest lending markets with deep liquidity and an active user base. It also represents the next step in Aave V4’s evolution, demonstrating how specialized markets can be built on shared liquidity to support new asset classes and institutional use cases.  When launched, the RWA Hub, together with support from USA₮, extends Avalanche’s tokenized-asset ecosystem beyond issuance and transfer into borrowing, liquidity, and risk-managed credit markets.

“The next phase of tokenization is about putting assets to work, not just bringing them onchain,” said John Nahas, Chief Business Officer at Ava Labs. “As more financial institutions adopt tokenized assets, they’ll need the infrastructure to borrow against them, access liquidity, and use them as effectively as they do in traditional markets. Aave V4 on Avalanche is an important step toward making that a reality and advancing the shift to a more efficient, onchain financial system.”

The upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub represents the next step in Avalanche’s evolution as a leading ecosystem for tokenized assets. By combining Avalanche’s growing tokenized asset ecosystem with Aave v4’s shared liquidity and risk management infrastructure, the platform enable institutions to unlock liquidity while laying the foundation for the next generation of onchain credit markets.

What is Aave, and what is Aave V4?

Founded by Stani Kulechov in 2020, Aave is the world’s leading decentralized lending protocol, powering the largest onchain lending network with $3.6 trillion in cumulative deposits and more than $1 trillion in all-time loans. It enables users to supply, borrow, and earn yield on digital assets through transparent blockchain-based smart contracts, without intermediaries and with 24/7 access.

Aave V4 is the latest generation of the protocol. It introduces Aave’s Hub & Spoke architecture, enabling specialized credit markets with dedicated risk frameworks while benefiting from shared liquidity infrastructure. For users, that means deeper liquidity, more efficient borrowing and lending markets, improved capital utilization, and access to a broader range of assets and opportunities. For asset issuers and institutions, it provides the flexibility to launch specialized markets tailored to different asset classes while benefiting from Aave’s shared liquidity and risk management infrastructure.

About USA₮

USA₮ is a dollar-backed stablecoin, issued by Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., a federally chartered bank, that Tether, the global leader in stablecoin technology, has collaborated with Anchorage Digital Bank in supporting to launch. Purpose-built to serve the U.S. market and support American regulatory standards, USA₮ will be a foundational rail for the next generation of American commerce, trade, and finance.

USA₮ underscores Tether’s commitment to driving U.S. dominance and leadership in the evolving digital asset economy. As part of the broader Tether ecosystem, USA₮ aims to set a new benchmark in the U.S. for utility-driven stablecoins designed to deliver long-term value, strong governance, and real-world applications.

About Avalanche

Avalanche is a technology platform built for business. Enterprises, financial institutions, consumer applications, and governments run core infrastructure on Avalanche because it delivers the reliability, compliance, and speed that modern operations demand. Users include BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, FIFA, and the state of Wyoming. For more information, visit avalanche.com.

About Ava Labs

Ava Labs is the company behind Avalanche, the blockchain platform built for business. Headquartered in New York City, Ava Labs builds the technology, tooling, and infrastructure that enterprises, financial institutions, consumer applications, and governments rely on to run production systems on blockchain. Clients range from global financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase and Apollo to public-sector organizations including the state of Wyoming and FIFA. Ava Labs was founded by Emin Gun Sirer and is backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and other leading technology investors.

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Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche – Media FAQ

Q1. What is being announced?

Aave and Avalanche are announcing the upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche, a dedicated credit market that will enable eligible tokenized financial assets to be used as collateral for borrowing. The RWA Hub will be built on the Aave V4 deployment already live on Avalanche and launch with inaugural support for USA₮, Tether’s federally regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin.

Q2. Why is this announcement significant?

The upcoming RWA Hub will be one of the first specialized markets enabled by Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture. It combines four important elements:

• A mature Aave lending market on Avalanche
• A growing ecosystem for tokenized assets
• A dedicated credit market for borrowing against tokenized assets
• USA₮ as the inaugural regulated digital-dollar borrowing asset

More broadly, it demonstrates how tokenized assets can move beyond issuance into borrowing, liquidity, and credit markets while benefiting from shared liquidity and dedicated risk frameworks.

Q3. Why now?

Tokenized assets have reached a scale where institutions increasingly need borrowing, liquidity, and credit infrastructure, not just issuance platforms.

Aave and Avalanche believe the industry is moving from tokenization toward financial utility.

Q4. Why are tokenized assets such an important opportunity?

Tokenization improves ownership, transferability, and settlement. The larger opportunity is enabling those assets to participate in lending, borrowing, and broader capital markets.

The RWA Hub is designed to help make tokenized assets productive rather than simply digital.

Q5. What problem does the RWA Hub solve that tokenization alone does not?

Tokenization digitizes ownership. Credit markets make those assets economically useful.

The RWA Hub enables institutions to borrow against tokenized assets without selling them, unlocking liquidity while maintaining ownership.

Q6. Why was Avalanche selected?

Avalanche combines several factors that make it an ideal environment for the first RWA Hub on Aave V4:

• One of Aave’s strongest existing lending markets
• Deep liquidity and established demand
• A mature user base
• One of the most active ecosystems for tokenized assets
• Growing institutional participation
• Strong long-term ecosystem support

Beyond Aave’s existing presence, Avalanche has become a leading platform for institutional blockchain adoption, supporting financial institutions, enterprises, and tokenization initiatives that require high performance, reliability, and compliance.

The planned RWA Hub reflects Aave V4’s broader strategy of expanding into ecosystems where demand already exists and where each deployment can specialize around the strengths of its market.

Q7. What is the Aave V4 RWA Hub?

The Aave V4 RWA Hub is a specialized credit market for tokenized financial assets.

It will enable eligible tokenized assets to be used as collateral for borrowing while benefiting from Aave V4’s shared liquidity and dedicated risk frameworks.

Q8. How does this advance institutional DeFi?

The RWA Hub expands Aave’s infrastructure for institutional borrowing against tokenized assets.

Combined with Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture, it creates dedicated markets that benefit from shared liquidity while maintaining tailored collateral and risk frameworks.

Q9. Why is shared liquidity important?

Shared liquidity allows specialized markets to benefit from deeper pools of capital than isolated markets.

That improves capital efficiency while allowing each market to maintain its own collateral policies and risk parameters.

Q10. What are the benefits for users?

Users benefit from:

• Deeper liquidity
• More efficient borrowing and lending markets
• Improved capital utilization
• Dedicated risk frameworks for different asset classes
• Future access to borrowing against eligible tokenized assets through the RWA Hub

Q11. What is the Hub & Spoke architecture?

Hub & Spoke is Aave V4’s new architecture designed to support specialized markets and a broader range of assets.

It combines dedicated risk frameworks with shared liquidity infrastructure, enabling more assets, more use cases, and more participants while maintaining capital efficiency.

Q12. How does this fit into Aave’s broader strategy?

The RWA Hub is one of the first planned specialized markets on Aave V4.

It demonstrates Aave V4’s multichain strategy: expanding into mature ecosystems with proven demand while allowing each deployment to specialize around the unique strengths of its market.

Q13. Why launch with USA₮? What about GHO or USDC?

USA₮ provides a federally regulated, dollar-backed borrowing asset designed for institutional use.

Additional borrowing assets may be supported over time based on governance decisions, ecosystem demand, and risk assessment.

Q14. Which tokenized assets will be supported?

The initial asset set will be announced closer to launch.

Over time, Aave expects the RWA Hub to support a broad range of eligible tokenized financial assets, including government bonds, money market funds, private credit, corporate bonds, and other assets approved through governance and risk review.

Q15. What does success look like?

Success will be measured by adoption of the RWA Hub, borrowing activity against tokenized assets, liquidity growth, ecosystem integrations, and institutional participation.

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Below are the edited questions that are now obsolete

Dedicated Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche:

Media FAQ

Q1. What is being announced?

Aave and Avalanche are announcing the upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche, a dedicated credit market that will enable eligible tokenized financial assets to be used as collateral for borrowing. The RWA Hub will be built on the Aave V4 deployment already live on Avalanche and launch with inaugural support for USA₮, Tether’s federally regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin.

Q. Why now?

The tokenized asset market has reached a scale where institutions increasingly need borrowing, liquidity, and credit infrastructure, not just issuance platforms.

Aave and Avalanche believe the industry is moving from tokenization toward financial utility.

Q2. Why is this launch significant?

The upcoming RWA Hub will be one of the first specialized markets enabled by Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture. It expands the range of markets Aave can support while maintaining shared liquidity across the ecosystem.

It combines four important elements:

• A mature Aave lending market on Avalanche
• A growing ecosystem for tokenized assets on Avalanche
• A dedicated RWA credit market for borrowing against tokenized assets
• USA₮ as the inaugural regulated digital-dollar borrowing asset

More broadly, the V4 RWA Hub on Avalanche demonstrates how tokenized assets can move beyond issuance and into borrowing, liquidity, and credit markets while benefiting from Aave’s shared liquidity and dedicated risk frameworks.

Q. What problem does this solve that tokenization alone doesn’t?

Tokenization allows assets to move onchain.

Credit markets allow those assets to become productive.

The combination of tokenization and lending infrastructure creates new opportunities for borrowing, liquidity, and capital efficiency that aren’t possible through tokenization alone.

Q3. Why was Avalanche selected as the first destination for Aave V4 beyond Ethereum?

Avalanche combines several factors that make it a strong environment for V4 growth:

• One of Aave’s strongest existing markets
• One of the most active ecosystems for real-world assets
• Deep liquidity and established demand
• A mature user base and ecosystem
• Growing institutional participation
• One of the most active ecosystems for tokenized assets
• Long-term ecosystem support through KPI-linked incentives

The planned RWA Hub reflects Aave broader strategy of expanding V4 into ecosystems where demand already exists and where partners are committed to supporting growth.

Q4. What is the Aave V4 RWA Hub?

The Aave V4 RWA Hub is a specialized environment for tokenized assets and institutional borrowing activity. It is one of the first planned specialized markets built on Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture.

It enables tokenized assets to access dedicated borrowing markets while benefiting from Aave V4’s shared liquidity and risk management infrastructure.

Q7. How does this advance institutional DeFi?

The next phase of DeFi isn’t just serving crypto-native assets.

It’s providing open financial infrastructure for an expanding range of digital and tokenized assets.

The upcoming deployment will create a specialized market for institutional borrowing activity and real-world asset markets.

Combined with Aave V4’s Hub and Spoke architecture, the deployment enables tokenized assets to access dedicated borrowing markets while benefiting from shared liquidity infrastructure and dedicated risk frameworks.

Q8. How does this deployment impact the broader institutional DeFi market?

The upcoming launch expands the infrastructure available for institutional participation in onchain finance by creating a dedicated credit market for tokenized assets within Aave V4.

By combining a dedicated RWA Hub, shared liquidity infrastructure, and specialized risk frameworks, the deployment creates new opportunities for borrowing against tokenized assets while maintaining the efficiency and scale of Aave’s lending markets.

More broadly, the deployment demonstrates how tokenized assets, institutional participants, and decentralized liquidity can operate within a common credit framework. As demand for tokenized assets continues to grow, this model has the potential to expand access to onchain credit and support the development of more mature institutional DeFi markets.

Q: Why are tokenized assets becoming such an important opportunity?

Financial institutions are increasingly bringing traditional assets such as government bonds, money market funds, private credit, and other securities onchain. Tokenization improves transferability and settlement, but the larger opportunity is enabling those assets to participate in lending, borrowing, and other financial markets.

Q: Why is borrowing against tokenized assets important?

Tokenization digitizes ownership. Credit markets make those assets economically useful.

Institutions don’t simply want to hold tokenized assets—they want to borrow against them, access liquidity, and use them efficiently without selling them.

Q: Why does this matter to institutional finance?

Institutions have historically had to choose between holding assets and accessing liquidity.

Tokenized assets combined with onchain credit infrastructure allow institutions to do both simultaneously, improving capital efficiency while maintaining ownership.

Q9. What are the benefits for users?

Users gain access to:

• Deeper liquidity
• More efficient borrowing and lending markets
• Improved capital utilization
• Access to a broader range of assets and opportunities
• Dedicated risk frameworks tailored to different market segments
• Future access to borrowing against eligible tokenized assets through the upcoming Aave V4 RWA Hub.

Q10. What is the Hub and Spoke architecture?

Hub and Spoke is Aave V4’s new architecture designed to support specialized lending environments, and a broader range of assets at scale.

The architecture combines dedicated risk frameworks with shared liquidity infrastructure, enabling more assets, more use cases, and more participants while maintaining capital efficiency.

Q11. How much ecosystem support is being provided?

The support extends beyond incentives to include ecosystem development, business development, treasury initiatives, marketing, developer relations, and institutional partnerships.

Q12. Why are the incentives KPI-linked?

The incentive structure is designed to reward measurable outcomes and align both ecosystems around long-term adoption rather than short-term launch activity.

The objective is to support sustainable growth and provide a transparent framework for measuring success over time.

Q13. How does this deployment fit into Aave’s broader strategy?

The RWA Hub represents one of the first specialized markets planned on Aave V4 beyond Ethereum and establishes a model for future growth.

Rather than deploying identical markets across every blockchain, Aave V4 is designed to expand into mature ecosystems with proven demand while allowing each deployment to specialize around its unique strengths. Avalanche is the first example of that strategy in action.

Q14. How does the upcoming RWA Hub build on Aave’s existing presence on Avalanche?

The RWA Hub builds on years of Aave activity on Avalanche, where Aave has established one of its strongest lending markets with deep liquidity, an active user base, and strong institutional momentum.Q15. What does success look like for this deployment?

Success will be measured by adoption of the RWA Hub, borrowing activity against tokenized assets, ecosystem integrations, liquidity growth, and institutional participation.

The KPI-linked incentive structure provides a transparent framework for measuring those outcomes.

Q16. Is this primarily a DeFi initiative or an institutional initiative?

It is both. The RWA Hub is designed to serve institutional use cases while benefiting from Aave’s shared liquidity infrastructure. Existing Aave users continue to benefit from deeper liquidity and more efficient lending markets, while institutions gain dedicated infrastructure for borrowing against tokenized assets.

Q17. Why are Tokenized assets important?

Tokenization is only the first step. The larger opportunity is enabling those assets to become productive by using them as collateral in borrowing and credit markets.

Q18. Why launch with USA₮? What about GHO and USDC?

USA₮ provides a federally regulated, dollar-backed borrowing asset that aligns with the needs of institutions accessing liquidity against tokenized financial assets.

Q19. Will USA₮ be the only supported borrowing asset?

USA₮ will be the inaugural borrowing asset for the RWA Hub. Over time, the market may support additional borrowing assets based on governance decisions, ecosystem demand, and risk assessment.

Q20. Why is this more important than simply tokenizing assets?

Tokenization alone digitizes ownership. The RWA Hub makes those assets economically useful by allowing them to participate in borrowing and credit markets. That’s what transforms tokenized assets from passive holdings into productive financial assets.

Q21. Which tokenized assets will be supported?

The initial asset set will be announced closer to launch. Aave expects the architecture to support a broad range of tokenized financial assets over time, including government bonds, money market funds, private credit, corporate bonds, and other eligible assets subject to governance and risk review.

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Aave V4 on Avalanche: Key Messages for Internal Alignment

1. Aave V4 Expands Beyond Ethereum, Launching a Dedicated Credit Market for Tokenized Assets

Aave V4’s first deployment beyond Ethereum brings the protocol’s next-generation lending infrastructure to Avalanche, building on one of Aave’s strongest existing markets while introducing a dedicated Aave V4 RWA Hub.

The deployment expands infrastructure for borrowing against tokenized assets, creating new opportunities for deeper liquidity, more efficient markets, and institutional participation in onchain finance.

Supporting points

• First deployment of Aave V4 beyond Ethereum
• Builds on one of Aave’s strongest existing markets
• Dedicated Aave V4 RWA Hub
• Expands infrastructure for tokenized asset borrowing

2. Aave and Avalanche Are Building the Next Generation of Onchain Credit Markets

The deployment brings together Aave’s deep liquidity and established lending market with Avalanche’s rapidly growing ecosystem for tokenized assets.

As financial institutions increasingly tokenize real-world assets, Aave V4 provides the infrastructure needed to use those assets as collateral while benefiting from shared liquidity and dedicated risk frameworks.

Supporting points

• Aave is the largest lending market on Avalanche
• Avalanche is a leading ecosystem for tokenized assets
• Dedicated infrastructure for institutional borrowing
• Expands access to onchain credit markets

3. A New Model for V4 Growth

The deployment reflects Aave V4’s multichain strategy: expanding into ecosystems with proven demand, deep liquidity, and strong ecosystem alignment.

Supporting points

• KPI-linked incentives tied to measurable outcomes
• Long-term ecosystem commitment from Avalanche
• Blueprint for future Aave V4 expansion