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Editorial policyUse Aave to supply a listed asset for a variable rate, or to borrow against collateral while health factor stays above 1.0. V4 is Hub & Spoke: you transact on a Spoke; the Hub holds the liquidity. Bookmark app.aave.com for V3 markets and pro.aave.com for Aave Pro / V4 — do not Google the URL. Skip Aave if you need deposit insurance, a guaranteed rate, or you cannot name which Spoke you are in. Educational research, not financial advice.
Aave is the default multi-chain DeFi lending market. V4 (Ethereum, 30 March 2026) uses a Hub for liquidity and Spokes for the market you actually click. Supply for a variable rate, or borrow and watch health factor — including V4’s target-health-factor liquidations.
Market context
DeFiLlamaAs of 27 August 2026, What is Aave V4? Hub, Spoke and When to Skip It reports approximately $17.60B total value locked in the lending category across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Plasma, Base.
Skip Aave if you wanted a bank savings account with insurance, you cannot explain health factor in one sentence, or you have no wallet yet. Skip migrating a V3 eMode loop you already understand just because V4 launched. Skip borrowing on V4 if you cannot name user risk premium and the Spoke’s target health factor. Supply-only is the beginner path.
Related comparisons
Yes — as the default multi-chain place to supply blue-chip crypto or borrow against it, if you can watch a health factor and you can name the front end you opened. Aave is a pool, not a bank: there is no deposit insurance, and variable rates can spike when utilisation is high. Start with supply-only on a Spoke (or V3 market) you can explain.
Aave V4 went live on Ethereum on 30 March 2026. It does not automatically retire V3. If you already understand a V3 eMode loop, skipping a rushed migration is a valid choice. If you are new, do not start by chasing a V4 screenshot APY.
DeFiLlama snapshot 2026-08-27: about $17.6 billion TVL for this listing. That is lockup, not a safety rating — re-check the live figure before you size anything.
V3 is a market-per-pool design: each listed asset on each deployment has its own reserve. V4 splits the job. The Liquidity Hub is the accounting and liquidity source. It issues each Spoke a credit line (how much it may borrow from the Hub) and a debit line (how much it may supply into the Hub). You do not ‘use the Hub’ in the UI — you transact on a Spoke, which routes supply and debt to and from the Hub.
That is not the same as ‘a position on Base draws Ethereum mainnet cash’. Official docs describe Hub & Spoke as modular markets sharing Hub accounting so governance can add or remove Spokes without migrating the whole pool. Treat any cross-chain liquidity claim as something to verify on the Spoke page and in the docs, not as a slogan.
Borrow rates still follow a utilisation curve. On top, V4 can add a user risk premium: extra borrow cost weighted by the quality of the collateral covering your debt. If you learned ‘everyone pays the same asset rate’, that sentence is now incomplete.
| Piece | What it does | Skip when |
|---|---|---|
| Liquidity Hub | Holds assets, accounting, per-Spoke credit/debit caps, emergency stop | You thought the Hub was a URL you browse |
| Spoke | The market you click: local risk params, oracles, your position | You cannot name which Spoke you are in |
| Reserve | How one Hub asset is supplied/borrowed inside one Spoke | You treated every listing as the same pool |
| V3 market | Still live at app.aave.com on many chains | You assumed V4 deleted V3 overnight |
Health factor is still eligible collateral value over debt. Below 1.0, liquidation can start. V3 used a close factor — liquidators often took a fixed fraction of the position. V4 instead aims at a target health factor set on the Spoke: the liquidator repays only enough to restore that target, which is meant to stop over-liquidation. The liquidation bonus can scale with how sick the position is (lower HF, higher bonus).
Dust rule from the official V4 docs: if leftover debt or collateral would sit under $1,000, the liquidator must clear the position. Do not size a borrow so small that a single liquidation is forced to wipe you because of dust, and do not assume a V3 ‘50% close’ still applies.
Start on Aave for listed markets and a long public track record — pick V3 or V4 deliberately. Use Morpho when a named curator vault is the product you want. Use Compound V3 for a simple single-base Comet. Use Resupply only if collateral already sits in Curve Lend or Fraxlend and you understand that stack.
| Aave | Morpho | Compound V3 | Resupply | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Job | Pooled lending (V3 pools / V4 Hub+Spoke) | Vault / isolated markets | Single-base Comets | CDP on Curve/Frax yield |
| Beginner path | Usually, supply-only | After Aave | If you want simpler markets | No — Curve first |
| Fixed rate | No | No | No | No — see Inverse FiRM |
Liquidation, oracle prints, utilisation-driven rate spikes, and — on V4 — picking the wrong Spoke or ignoring user risk premium bite more often than a core-contract exploit. Isolation-mode listings, GHO, and curator-like Spoke parameters add risk on top of blue-chip supply. We have not deposited for you.
V3 interface we name: app.aave.com. V4 / Aave Pro interface we name: pro.aave.com. Type them or use a bookmark you made yourself. Do not click Google Ads, Discord DMs, or X replies. You need a self-custody wallet and gas on the network you pick. How-to click paths live on the Aave supply guide. This page is the decision: whether Aave is the right pool, and which version you meant.
Convex, Curve, Resupply, Inverse Finance and Frax share collateral, gauges and stablecoin rails. Read the flywheel first if you are new to the stack.
FAQ
A non-custodial lending protocol: supply to earn a variable rate or borrow against collateral. It is not a bank, not insured, and not a fixed-rate product. Rates move with utilisation. V4 adds Hub & Spoke accounting on top of that job.
The Hub holds liquidity and issues credit/debit lines. You interact with a Spoke, which has its own risk parameters and oracles. Adding a Spoke is not the same as migrating every V3 pool.
Only if you can name the Spoke, the oracle, and why your current V3 position is worse. Skip a migration you cannot reverse in a hurry. This page does not recommend migrating.
Still collateral versus debt. Below 1.0, liquidation can start. V4 liquidators target a Spoke-level health factor instead of V3’s close factor, and the bonus can vary. Watch it if you borrow.
Aave’s listed pools are more battle-tested; Morpho adds curator and isolated-market risk. Neither is insured. Pick the risk you can name, not the higher screenshot APY.
No. Educational research only. We do not recommend borrowing, supplying, or buying AAVE. Verify live parameters on the app and DeFiLlama.
Aave V4 went live on Ethereum on 30 March 2026 with Hub & Spoke accounting, a new liquidation engine, and a user risk premium on borrows. V3 did not disappear. This is the launch recap and who should not migrate yet — not a click-path.
Aave V4 launched on Ethereum mainnet on March 30, 2026, introducing a hub-and-spoke lending model, unified liquidity across chains, and a governance package that routes 100% of protocol revenue to AAVE buybacks. With $26.18 billion in TVL, Aave is now the most valuable DeFi protocol ever.
Compound V3 (Comet) is single-base lending markets — simpler than Aave’s multi-asset pool. Verdict-first guide on when that simplicity helps and when Aave or Morpho is the better tool.