Aave founder predicts the relaunch of ETHLend next year, bringing "true BTC" back to Decentralized Finance lending?

The founder and CEO of the decentralized lending protocol Aave, Stani Kulechov, promised today (22nd) during an interaction with the community on the X platform: “In 2026, we will bring ETHLend back, I promise.” (Background: Aave to initiate token buyback? Community proposal: buy $1 million weekly for six months, optimize staking rewards) (Background: AAVE surged 22% today: TVL surpassed $30 billion, is Ethereum DeFi shining again?) The founder and CEO of the decentralized lending protocol Aave, Stani Kulechov, promised today (22nd) during an interaction with the community on the X platform: “In 2026, we will bring ETHLend back, I promise.” This statement instantly ignited discussions within the crypto community, as ETHLend is the original predecessor of Aave and the first true P2P lending protocol to go live in the entire DeFi history. Most interesting part was that the Bitcoin collateral was real Bitcoin, no wrappers. In 2026, we will bring ETHLend back, I promise. https://t.co/o1JIiiRmUs — Stani.eth (@StaniKulechov) November 22, 2025 What is ETHLend? ETHLend started development in April 2017 and officially launched in November of the same year, when Stani was still a law student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. It was ahead of Compound, MakerDAO, and even Uniswap, praised as the pioneer of the “DeFi 0 Era.” In 2018, due to liquidity bottlenecks, the team decided to transform ETHLend into a liquidity pool model and officially reborn in 2020 under the name Aave V1. The LEND token was also migrated at a ratio of 100:1 to AAVE, and ETHLend became a legend. How avant-garde was ETHLend back then? Six highlights at a glance: The world's first completely P2P, no liquidity pool lending protocol: Borrowers and lenders directly match orders on-chain, like a crypto version of eBay, with no intermediary pool. Any ERC-20 token could be used as collateral: Not only ETH, but even small coins like FUN, SNT, OMG at that time could be used as collateral, extremely open. First to introduce the “partial collateral + credit guarantor” mechanism: The collateral ratio could go as low as 105%, but it required finding an on-chain friend as a guarantor, making it a prototype of on-chain joint guarantee loans. The earliest realization of "real Bitcoin native collateral (without WBTC or any wrapping): launched in March 2018, using atomic swaps + time-lock technology, allowing real BTC to be directly locked into Ethereum contracts as collateral, more than a year ahead of WBTC. Completely decentralized order book + anyone can be a liquidator: All orders are public and transparent, liquidation rewards are determined by market competition. The LEND token is solely used for fee reductions: no mining, no staking, a minimalist functional design. Because of these bold innovations, ETHLend survived for only a little over a year, yet laid the foundation for all subsequent lending protocols. As for the 2026 revival version of ETHLend, Stani hinted that the new ETHLend may support “real Bitcoin as collateral, without any wrapping (no wrappers),” directly echoing the most hardcore feature from 2018. This means users will be able to lock native BTC from their cold wallets into the protocol to borrow ETH, stablecoins, or other assets, without relying on centralized bridging channels or cross-chain bridges, significantly reducing risks. This move is not only a tribute to the original intention of DeFi but is also interpreted by the market as Aave's key layout before the full explosion of the Bitcoin ecosystem, expected to truly bridge the liquidity between the BTC and Ethereum camps. Related reports: Michael Saylor responds to “MicroStrategy may be removed from MSCI Index”: Our Bitcoin business is unique, index classification cannot define it. Arthur Hayes: Bitcoin is about to bottom out but don't rush to go all in! “Before the printing market, wait for the U.S. stock market to collapse again.” Bridgewater's Dalio: I have Bitcoin, but it only accounts for 1% of my portfolio; BTC can never be a sovereign reserve currency. <Aave founder previews re-launching ETHLend next year, bringing “real BTC” back to DeFi lending?> This article was first published in BlockTempo, the most influential blockchain news media.