// the find
aave/aave-v4
Aave V4
Aave V4 is the next major version of the Aave lending protocol, rewritten around a hub-and-spoke architecture that separates liquidity management (Hub) from collateralization and user operations (Spokes). It's aimed at protocol integrators, auditors, and teams building on top of Aave—not end users. Not yet deployed to mainnet as of the repo's state.
- Hub-and-spoke separation is a genuine architectural improvement over V3's monolithic pool: spokes handle collateral risk independently, which allows per-market risk parameters without cross-contaminating liquidity.
- Vendored dependencies in src/dependencies rather than pulling from npm/git submodules at build time is a smart supply-chain decision for a protocol handling billions in TVL—you know exactly what code you're running.
- Test coverage is extensive and well-organized: separate test files per operation (borrow, liquidation, accrual, etc.) with edge case and validation splits, plus gas snapshot tracking across multiple operation categories.
- Three independent audit reports already committed to the repo (Blackthorn, Trail of Bits, ChainSecurity), all from early 2026, which is unusually thorough pre-launch audit coverage.
- BUSL license means you cannot fork and deploy a competing protocol—it's source-available, not open source. Anyone evaluating this as a base for their own lending protocol needs to read that license carefully before investing time.
- Bug bounty details are listed as 'coming soon,' which is a notable gap for a protocol of this scale. Audits are present but a live bounty program is a different layer of security that's still missing.
- The docs are thin—docs/overview.md exists but there's no detailed spec for the Hub/Spoke interaction model, the premium calculation mechanics, or the intent/signature flow. The architecture diagram is a single SVG. For integrators trying to build on top of this, that's a lot of code-reading to do.
- No mainnet deployment artifacts or addresses are committed yet, and the deployment scripts only cover Ethereum and an Anvil example. Cross-chain spoke deployment, which the architecture seems designed for, has no concrete reference implementation in the repo.