Aave Labs Launches Horizon With KAIO and Leading Financial Partners, Unlocking Onchain Liquidity for Real-World Assets

AUGUST 27, 2025; 9AM ET — Aave Labs today announced the launch of Horizon, a new institutional platform enabling stablecoin borrowing against tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).  Built on Aave, the largest and most trusted decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol with over $62 Bn in net deposits, Horizon operates 24/7 through onchain lending markets, pairing institutional-grade compliance with deep, decentralized liquidity. 

For the first time, Aave users can utilize traditional financial assets such as U.S. Treasuries and institutional funds as collateral to borrow stablecoins, unlocking new liquidity.

Horizon launches with a network of leading institutions, tokenized asset providers, stablecoin issuers, asset managers, and infrastructure leaders. In its initial phase, this includes Centrifuge, Superstate, Circle, and Ripple alongside Ant Digital Technologies, Ethena, KAIO (formerly Libre), OpenEden, Securitize, VanEck, Hamilton Lane (Nasdaq: HLNE), and WisdomTree. Chainlink, the standard for onchain finance. These partners anchor Horizon’s markets in high-quality institutional assets. 

At launch, eligible collateral will include the Superstate Short Duration US Government Securities Fund (“USTB”), Superstate Crypto Carry Fund (“USCC”), Circle’s Hashnote International Short Duration Yield Fund Ltd. (“USYC”), and Centrifuge’s Janus Henderson Anemoy AAA CLO Fund (“JAAA”) and Janus Henderson Anemoy Treasury Fund ("JTRSY”), with plans to expand into additional tokenized products over time. Among the tokenized products represented by Horizon’s partner network is the VanEck® Treasury Fund, Ltd. (“VBILL”) and WisdomTree Government Money Market Digital Fund ("WTGXX"), which exemplifies the regulated, high-quality assets that can gain new utility through Horizon’s infrastructure.

“Horizon x KAIO exemplifies the future of onchain institutional finance. With KAIO’s native onchain RWA architecture, assets can be easily accessed and used seamlessly on Horizon without the need for wrapping or other technical workarounds—just one click and users can access liquidity directly. This is the type of elegant integration the market has been waiting for, and it is only possible through KAIO,” said Dr. Avtar Sehra, Founder KAIO.

Institutions are quickly adopting tokenization, with over $25 billion in real-world assets already tokenized. However, most of these assets are underutilized. They remain in legacy systems that are slow, opaque, and costly, hindering real-time liquidity and their use in decentralized finance markets as collateral to borrow stablecoins, thereby unlocking liquidity. 

Horizon changes this by enabling institutions to borrow stablecoins in real time against tokenized RWAs (such as U.S. Treasuries, AAA-rated collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and institutional funds with plans to expand to additional asset classes over time) through an instance of Aave V3. Qualified institutions can post tokenized RWAs as collateral and access predictable, capital-efficient stablecoin liquidity such as USDC, Ripple USD (RLUSD), and GHO, on demand. This means institutions can use their tokenized assets to get capital quickly and efficiently, enabling new institutional use cases from short-term financing to DeFi yield strategies. 

To power onchain institutional lending at scale, Horizon has adopted Chainlink SmartData, starting with the deployment of NAVLink, a foundational dataset that enables the automated delivery of accurate net asset value directly onchain to securely value tokenized RWA collateral such as treasury bills and money market funds. This enables real-time, overcollateralized stablecoin loans within a compliant DeFi framework. The adoption of Onchain NAV is the first step in a broader integration strategy of Chainlink data services, including Proof of Reserve to verify reserves transparently and SmartAUM for granular asset composition tracking. Ultimately, Chainlink enables Horizon to leverage a modular onchain data infrastructure and risk management system tailored to power the next generation of institutional-grade tokenized assets.

Issuer-enforced permissioning is designed in a way that regulatory compliance is at the token level, while permissionless stablecoin markets preserve the openness and composability of DeFi. Supported by its network of institutional partners, Horizon expands Aave’s reach into institutional finance, positioning the Aave ecosystem as a core source of liquidity for the growing global tokenization market and laying the groundwork for a more connected, decentralized financial system.

About Horizon
Horizon is the institutional product suite and infrastructure layer developed by Aave Labs to RWAs with decentralized finance markets. Horizon enables institutional investors to unlock 24/7 liquidity against tokenized money market funds with plans to expand into additional asset classes, providing automated compliance, and stablecoin borrowing via the Aave Protocol. Horizon is designed to expand institutional participation in DeFi. It also serves as the umbrella for Aave Labs’ broader institutional initiatives across private markets and regulated finance.

About Aave Labs
Founded by Stani Kulechov, Aave Labs is one of the core contributors to the Aave Protocol, the leading and most trusted decentralized liquidity protocol with over $62 bn in net deposits. Part of Avara, a technology company dedicated to bringing financial opportunity to everyone, Aave Labs also developed the Aave-native overcollateralized stablecoin GHO and has launched Horizon, an institutional platform enabling compliant stablecoin borrowing against tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). 

‍