Today, Aave Labs, one of the core contributors to Aave, announced the launch of Horizon, an institutional platform enabling compliant stablecoin borrowing against tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).
Built on Aave’s leading DeFi protocol with over $62 billion in net deposits, Horizon enables 24/7 capital-efficient borrowing through onchain lending markets, combining institutional-grade compliance with deep, decentralized liquidity. For the first time, Aave users can utilize traditional financial assets as collateral to borrow stablecoins.
Institutional RWA adoption is on the rise, with more than $26 billion in real-world assets already tokenized. Horizon unlocks significant onchain liquidity for previously underutilized RWAs, such as U.S. Treasuries, AAA-rated collateralized loan obligations, and institutional funds by allowing them to function as collateral in DeFi markets.
Qualified institutions can post tokenized RWAs as collateral and access predictable, capital-efficient, on-demand liquidity from stablecoins such as USDC, Ripple USD (RLUSD), and Aave’s Chainlink-powered stablecoin, GHO. This capability facilitates a range of new institutional use cases from short-term financing to DeFi yield strategies.
“Horizon is built for the growth of tokenized real-world collateral, enabling lending and borrowing at institutional scale,” said Aave Labs’ founder, Stani Kulechov.
“Horizon delivers the infrastructure and deep stablecoin liquidity that institutions require to operate onchain, unlocking 24/7 access, transparency, and more efficient markets. With Horizon, Aave is at the forefront of the move to onchain global finance, powered by its trusted, resilient technology and ecosystem partners.”
Among Horizon’s launch partners, including leading institutions, tokenized asset providers, stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and infrastructure leaders, is Chainlink, the standard for onchain finance securing over $93 billion throughout DeFi.
To power onchain institutional lending at scale, Horizon is adopting Chainlink’s SmartData asset suite, beginning with NAVLink to automate delivery of accurate net asset value (NAV) data for tokenized RWA collateral directly onchain. Horizon’s broader Chainlink integration strategy includes plans to integrate Proof of Reserve for transparent reserve verification and SmartAUM for granular asset composition tracking.
“Horizon is a very exciting new chapter in Aave’s development and really shows the next stage of the DeFi industry,” said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. “We are very excited to be a key partner for Aave’s Horizon plan and are looking forward to enabling it to be highly secure, reliable, and connected to leading financial institutions.”