Aave Slides Even With SEC Investigation Behind It And Expansion Plans Ahead

• Aave's price was down nearly 1% On Wednesday despite the Securities and Exchange Commission ending its investigation, amid weakness in the broader market.
• Aave CEO Stani Kulechov revealed the 2026 roadmap for Aave centered on V4, Horizon, and a mobile app.
• AAVE's daily trading volume fell nearly 28% over the past day.

Aave's (AAVE) price wasn't in the green on Wednesday , even after Stani Kulechov, CEO and co-founder of Aave, announced the end of a 4-year-long battle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and unveiled expansion plans ahead.

Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov announced on Tuesday, in a post on X, that the SEC had ended its investigation with no further action. He said the process took four years to come to an end. 

Kulechov noted that as a founder, he had to“protect Aave, its ecosystem, and DeFi more broadly,” adding that decentralized finance (DeFi) has been unfairly pressured by regulators in the last few years. 

Despite the SEC win, Aave's price was trading at $184.53, down 0.08% in the last 24 hours. The token's trading volume tanked nearly 27.78% over the day to $3.50 million. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around Aave remained in 'bearish' territory over the past day, accompanied by 'normal' levels of chatter. 

Aave Introduces Its '2026 Master Plan'

The price action also comes on the back of another update Kulechov shared on X on Wednesday, which outlines Aave's“2026 Master Plan.” 

Kulechov noted that the DeFi protocol wants to focus on three main projects – Aave V4, Horizon, and the Aave App – as part of its long-term objective to increase DeFi adoption and onboard trillions of dollars in assets. 

He said that 2025 was Aave's best year yet. The platform's peak deposits were $75 billion, and the protocol saw $885 million in fees, which was about 52% of all DeFi protocol fees. Aave now, said Kulechov, has around 59% of the DeFi lending market and 61% of all active DeFi loans. 

Aave V4 is intended to serve as key financial infrastructure, with the team collaborating with fintech firms, DAOs, and others to increase total value locked until 2026. Aave's total value locked stands at $33.19 billion, as per DeFilama data.

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