Aave is a decentralised, non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows anyone to borrow and lend a wide range of digital assets.
It began as Lend (LEND) in 2017, rebranded, and started migrating the previous token to AAVE in October 2020.
The platform is available in different iterations: Versions 1, 2, and 3. According to an Aave Docs entry, the latter offers improved capital efficiencies, greater security, and cross-chain functionality while allowing for high decentralisation.
While its focus is still on peer-to-peer (P2P) borrowing and lending of crypto assets, the protocol is still limited to Ethereum and a few ERC-20 tokens, mostly stablecoins. Thus, it excludes a massive chunk of the digital asset space by being unable to deal with Bitcoin directly.
However, there is a workaround: Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).
A wrapped asset is a token (usually issued on Ethereum’s blockchain) representing the original asset, with its price being more or less pegged to the native coin.
I believe cryptos on other blockchains, such as ADA, BNB, XRP, SOL, and AVAX, will eventually be available in a wrapped form as this market matures.
Where are tokens available through its platform kept? According to its website FAQs:
