Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave has announced that it will launch its V4 update, a big upgrade for the protocol, sometime in the last part of 2025. This update will add new features like modular lending markets and better ways to manage risk. Aave’s new design uses a “hub and spoke” model, which lets users to borrow and lend cryptocurrency with more flexible options, without keeping money locked in separate places. The liquidity hubs serve as main pools for different markets, called spokes. Each spoke has a unique market with one of three risk levels and different rates for borrowing and lending, replacing the Aave’s old standard rates.

The upgrade will come with a new interface that offers a unified, wallet-level view of all the modular spokes. This means that the users can easily see detailed information and manage trades across different markets from one central point. Aave V4 will also introduce changing risk settings to stop unexpected sales of assets when the conditions change, like if collateral values drop. In Aave V3, changing these settings could risk forced sales if a user had more than one position open. The new liquidation process will transition to a “health-targeted” system, meaning that the sales will not be a set amount or cover the whole position, but just enough to keep the loan within safe collateral limits. This lets lenders recover funds while keeping the borrower’s position active.

The users can choose a “Position Manager” that automatically takes actions like withdrawing, borrowing, repaying, and managing transactions for them. The upgrade will also have a multi-call option, allowing users to combine several actions into one transaction for easier handling. Aave’s V4 update is expected to come out in the last quarter of 2025. The next steps include publishing a white paper, making the V4 code available to the public, and starting a test version of the DeFi protocol. This launch is eagerly awaited, especially since the total value locked in DeFi has surpassed $156 billion, moving close to the highest levels seen in December 2021 during the last bull market, as reported by DefiLama.