Aave Debuts Tokenized Asset Borrowing Platform Backed by Circle, Ripple, Others

Aave Labs has launched Horizon, its new platform dedicated to institutional borrowers to access stablecoins using tokenized versions of real-world assets (RWAs) like U.S. Treasuries as collateral.

At launch, institutions will be able to borrow Circle’s USDC, Ripple’s RLUSD and Aave’s GHO against a set of tokenized assets, including Superstate’s short-duration U.S. Treasury and crypto carry funds, Circle’s yield fund, and Centrifuge’s tokenized Janus Henderson products.

The platform aims to offer qualified investors with short-term financing on their RWA holdings and allow them to deploy yield strategies.

With Horizon, first announced in March, Aave aims to tap into the rapidly growing, $26 billion tokenized asset market and turning those assets into usable capital for institutions. Tokenized assets are projected to balloon into a multiple trillion-dollar market over the next few years as major banks and asset managers increasingly place traditional instruments like bonds, equities, real estate on blockchain rails as a token for operational efficiency.

However, efforts to make RWA tokens useful in the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending markets are in the early innings, limiting their practical use.

“Horizon delivers the infrastructure and deep stablecoin liquidity that institutions require to operate on-chain, unlocking 24/7 access, transparency and more efficient markets,” Aave Labs founder Stain Kulechov said in a statement.

The protocol runs on Aave V3, which is the largest decentralized lending protocol with more than $66 billion in assets on the platform, according to DefiLlama data.

The platform’s setup blends permissioned and permissionless features: collateral tokens embed issuer-level compliance checks, while the lending pools remain open and composable.

Chainlink’s oracle services supply real-time pricing data, starting with NAVLink, delivering net asset values of tokenized funds directly on-chain to ensure the loans are appropriately collateralized.

Launch partners include a range of asset issuers including Ethena, OpenEden, Securitize, VanEck, Hamilton Lane and WisdomTree, with plans to expand collateral selection to more tokenized assets.

Read more: Tokenization of Real-World Assets is Gaining Momentum, Says Bank of America