Aave Labs, the developer of the eponymous decentralized lending ecosystem, has acquired Stable Finance, a San Francisco-based company. The deal opens up Aave‘s entry into the retail onchain services market.
Founded in 2023, the Stable Financeapp allows users to deposit funds from bank accounts, cards, or crypto wallets to earn yield on stablecoins through overcollateralized decentralized protocols.
Along with Stable Finance, its founder Mario Baxter Cabrera and the development team will join Aave Labs. The financial terms of the deal are not disclosed.
The deal demonstrates Aave‘s intention to combine the development of retail products with an active entry into the institutional market. Recently, the protocol announced a partnership with Maple Finance and the integration of their yield stablecoins, as well as the launch of Horizon—a platform for trading tokenized assets focused on institutions.
According to Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov, the acquisition of Stable Finance “confirms our goal—to make onchain finance part of everyday life”.
Aave has been operating since January 2020 and, according to DefiLlama, has already accumulated more than $37.25 billion in locked liquidity.
Total Aave TVL. Source: DefiLlama
Discussion around yield stablecoins
Aave is far from the only one offering users yield through overcollateralized DeFi protocols and stablecoin lending strategies.
Back in September, Coinbase integrated the Morpho protocol directly into its app, allowing clients to deposit USDC and earn yield. The update opened access to onchain markets with yields up to 10.8%—more than twice the standard 4.5% in the Coinbase rewards program for USDC.
A similar collaboration between Crypto.com and Morpho appeared in early October: Morpho’s stablecoin lending became available in the Cronos ecosystem. Users can deposit wrapped ETH, use it as collateral, and borrow stablecoins at interest.
See also: Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol are ready to settle the $120 million FET token dispute
Although the GENIUS law, passed in July 2025, bans yield stablecoins, it does not directly restrict DeFi lending protocols and does not prevent exchanges from offering yield through onchain markets.
This regulatory loophole has caused a sharp reaction from traditional banks. They believe such schemes create unfair competition and could lead to a massive outflow of deposits from the US banking system amounting to trillions of dollars.
But the crypto community disagrees. On September 16, Coinbase published a post stating:
‘The very institutions now talking about “systemic risks” make tens of billions on card processing fees, while stablecoins could bypass this system entirely.’
