Aave is one of the leading decentralized finance (DeFi) money markets that is planning to launch a permissioned version of its platform for institutional investors this month. Crypto custodian and service provider Fireblocks will partner with Aave for this platform.
The news came to light after a Twitter user named TraderNoah tweeted a screenshot of an email claimed to be received by him after attending a webinar on Blockworks’ “Next Steps in Institutional DeFi” featuring Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov, Fireblocks CEO and co-founder Michael Shaulov, and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz.
It was unveiled in the conference and the email that “Aave Pro”, the platform’s institutional product will launch this month in response to “extensive demand from various institutions.“
The institutional platform will support only four assets at launch, BTC, ETH, Aave, and USD Coin. The pools will be segregated from Aave’s other deployment. It’ll also feature a whitelisting layer for its v2 smart contracts ensuring that only those who have passed Fireblocks’ KYC verification can access Aave Pro. It’ll also implement Anti-money laundering and anti-fraud controls for Aave Pro.
Some more details can be seen from the email as it notes plans for decentralizing governance for this platform in the future. The crypto community had mixed reactions to this screenshot with some showing optimism that the platform will usher a new rail for institutions to deeply engage with decentralized finance.
$AAVE Pro coming in July.
For those that didn't attend the "NExt Steps in Institutional Defi" Zoom with Stani, here's a recap email I received.
What people have yet to appreciate about Aave and Compound’s institutional products is that having doxxed institutional clients gives them an easy way to move into undercollateralized lending and credit markets.
However, some have poured out their concern regarding Fireblocks’ involvement with the platform which is already in the middle of an ongoing lawsuit by staking provider StakeHound over deletion of private keys of a wallet worth $72 million of Ether.
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