Aave Founder: What is the Secret of the DeFi Lending Market?
Chain-based lending, which began as an experimental concept around 2017, has evolved into a market exceeding $100 billion, primarily driven by stablecoin borrowing backed by crypto-native collateral like Ethereum and Bitcoin. This system enables liquidity release, leveraged strategies, and yield arbitrage. The key advantage of on-chain lending lies not in technological novelty but in its elimination of financial inefficiencies, offering lower costs (around 5% for stablecoins) compared to centralized crypto lenders (7-12%) due to open capital aggregation, transparency, and automation.
On-chain lending is structurally due to permissionless markets that excel in capital pooling and risk pricing, fostering competition and innovation without intermediaries. This model reduces operational costs, replacing manual processes with code, and benefits both capital providers and borrowers. However, the current limitation is not a lack of capital but a shortage of diverse, borrowable collateral.
The future of on-chain lending depends on integrating real-world economic value with crypto-native assets, moving beyond abstract financial strategies to serve broader adoption. Traditional lending remains expensive due to inefficiencies in loan origination, risk assessment, and servicing, where misaligned incentives and manual processes inflate costs. Decentralized finance can disrupt this by automating end-to-end operations, ensuring transparency, and reducing expenses. When on-chain lending becomes significantly cheaper and more efficient than traditional systems, widespread adoption will follow, empowering borrowers with faster, more accessible capital. Aave exemplifies this shift, positioning itself as a foundational layer for a new financial backend.
marsbit02/10 02:17