Aave Shuts Down Family Wallet, Retires Avara Brand

2026-02-04 09:16:26

Aave founder Stani Kulechov announced the decentralized finance protocol is winding down its Family iOS wallet over the coming year and retiring the Avara umbrella brand as the company consolidates operations entirely under Aave Labs.

The strategic retreat from consumer wallet products comes from a bet that mainstream users will adopt crypto through focused financial applications, such as savings and lending, rather than general-purpose explorers.

Family will stop onboarding new users from April 1, with existing customers able to access the app until April 2027 before transitioning to Aave’s infrastructure.

The shift comes weeks after Aave transferred stewardship of its Lens Protocol social network to Mask Network, completing a dramatic narrowing of focus following years of ecosystem expansion and internal governance battles.

Purpose-Built Products Replace Open-Ended Wallet Strategy

Kulechov said the decision reflects lessons learned from attempting to onboard millions of users through different product approaches.

“Through this journey, we’ve learned that onboarding millions of users requires purpose-built experiences, such as savings, rather than generic, open-ended wallet experiences,” he stated in the announcement.

The Family team, acquired by Avara in 2023 for their design capabilities, contributed work across multiple Aave products, including Aave Pro, the mobile app, and the protocol’s brand identity.

According to the company’s announcement, their core technology, Family Accounts, will continue to power authentication and embedded wallet functionality across Aave’s product suite rather than operate as a standalone consumer application.

Existing Family users will maintain full control of their funds through accounts.aave.com using their credentials, though app functionality will gradually be limited to account access and withdrawals only.

Kulechov emphasized the infrastructure approach supports “a more seamless user journey, stronger safety protections, and more intuitive interfaces, while preserving user sovereignty and full control of funds.“

Consolidation Follows Governance Turmoil and Regulatory Wins

The brand consolidation follows a turbulent six-month period during which Aave faced accusations of governance manipulation and internal disputes over asset ownership.

In December, Kulechov purchased roughly $10 million worth of AAVE tokens shortly before a controversial vote, prompting critics, including DeFi strategist Robert Mullins, to allege the move was designed to boost voting power rather than demonstrate long-term commitment.

Community tensions escalated when Aave Labs unilaterally pushed a proposal to vote regarding brand asset ownership without notifying its author, Ernesto Boado of BGD Labs.

“This is not, in ethos, my proposal,” Boado declared, adding that Aave Labs “breaks all codes of trust with the community” by rushing the submission during what had been a productive forum discussion.

Contributors raised concerns that certain product decisions, including replacing Paraswap with CowSwap integration, redirected an estimated $10 million annually in fees away from the DAO treasury toward private entities.

Marc Zeller of the Aave Chan Initiative argued the DAO had paid for brand assets “four times” through the original LEND token sale, dilution, liquidity mining programs, and service provider fees.

Snapshot data showed the top three wallets controlled more than 58% of voting power, with the largest wallet holding over 27%, intensifying concerns about whale dominance and conflicts of interest within the ecosystem.

Despite internal friction, Aave secured regulatory clarity when the Securities and Exchange Commission concluded its multi-year investigation without recommending enforcement action in December, ending nearly 4 years of uncertainty, and also obtained MiCA authorization in Europe.

The Lens Protocol handover to Mask Network in January represented another piece of Aave’s consolidation strategy.

Kulechov emphasized that “all functions move to Mask,” including IP, chain infrastructure, and social media accounts, while Lens remains permissionless infrastructure.

Aave remains one of the largest DeFi platforms by total value locked, surpassing $45 billion in October.

The Estonia-born, Finland-raised founder, who recently purchased a £22 million mansion in London’s Notting Hill, is preparing to launch Aave V4.

All current and future products will now operate exclusively under the Aave Labs brand as the company focuses resources on “building Aave brand awareness and introducing DeFi to millions of new users globally.“

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