First published 8 October 2020, as LEND was migrating to AAVE. Expanded in October 2026 for GHO and for the versions of the protocol that are actually open. Aave is software that pools deposits so other people can borrow them. Lenders put assets in. Borrowers post collateral and draw from the pool. Interest is a rate the pool sets from how full it is. If collateral falls through the line the protocol drew, the position can be liquidated. Nobody phones you first. DeFi is software with rules you cannot call support about.
AAVE is the governance token of that software. It is not the deposit, and it is not the debt. Ethereum without the jargon is the chain the original pools sit on. This page is the token, and the three other tokens people mix up with it.
From ETHLend to a pool
Stani Kulechov’s earlier project, ETHLend, tried to match individual lenders and borrowers. It raised money in a 2017 sale of a token called LEND. Matching one loan at a time did not scale. The team rebuilt the idea as pooled liquidity, renamed the project Aave, and launched that protocol on Ethereum in January 2020. In the autumn of 2020 holders migrated LEND to AAVE at one hundred LEND for one AAVE. The new supply was 16 million: 13 million for the people who migrated, and 3 million in an ecosystem reserve. LEND is not AAVE. A wallet that still shows LEND is showing the token you did not migrate.
The first version of the pools was later frozen. Repaying and withdrawing from that old version can still be possible. New deposits belong on the version the app is actually pointing at. A tutorial from 2020 that says “open Aave” may be pointing at a contract governance has retired.
Receipts, the safety module, and GHO
When you deposit, you receive a receipt token, often an aToken. It is a claim on the pool, and it is not AAVE. When you borrow, the debt is tracked separately. Sending the receipt to someone sends the claim. Sending AAVE does not repay the loan.
AAVE can be staked in the safety module, a pool meant to cover a shortfall if the protocol owes depositors more than it can pay. Stakers have been paid in AAVE for taking that position, and the design allows the stake to be slashed if the shortfall is real. There is a cooldown before you can leave. The reward rate is a parameter. Staking is a lock and a queue, not a savings account.
GHO is a different token: a dollar-denominated asset minted against collateral supplied through Aave. Interest on GHO is the protocol’s, not a dividend of AAVE. What is GHO? is that token. What is Dai (DAI)? is the older collateral dollar this one is often compared with. GHO is not DAI, and neither is AAVE. A wallet that lists all three has not made them interchangeable.
A flash loan is an uncollateralised borrow that must be repaid inside the same transaction. If the repayment is not there, the whole transaction reverts. It is a tool for other contracts. It is not a loan you take home, and this page will not walk through using one.
Aave’s pools also run on chains other than Ethereum. A deposit on one deployment is not a balance on another. The wrong network is still the wrong city. Nothing here is an instruction to deposit, borrow, stake, or buy AAVE.
