Most Influential: Stani Kulechov

Tech Share Share this article Copy link X icon X (Twitter) LinkedIn Facebook Email Most Influential: Stani Kulechov The Aave founder is bringing DeFi to the masses. By Krisztian Sandor | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Dec 19, 2025, 3:00 p.m. Aave isn’t just big for DeFi. It’s the largest lending protocol in the sector by a mile, with more than $50 billion in assets deposited across its markets. That's a balance sheet that would slot it roughly into the ranks of the top 50 U.S. banks by assets if it were a traditional institution. STORY CONTINUES BELOW Don't miss another story. Subscribe to the The Protocol Newsletter today . See all newsletters Sign me up By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk products and you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave and developer Aave Labs, has a straightforward version of what he’s building: "Aave will be the backbone of all credit," he said . Not just leverage for crypto traders, but mortgages, credit cards, consumer and business loans, even sovereign debt — with DeFi running quietly in the background. The path there runs on two rails. On the consumer side, the upcoming Aave App , now listed on Apple’s App Store, aims to become a savings account for average investors. Users see an interface closer to a neobank; under the hood, deposits are funneled into Aave’s onchain lending markets — a textbook "DeFi mullet" play where a familiar, Web2 front end masks the complex blockchain and DeFi engine in the back end. Then, there's the institutional side and the booming tokenized real-world asset space. Aave's Horizon , which debuted this August, is offering regulated players a marketplace to borrow stablecoins on their tokenized assets 24/7 while staying inside compliance lines. It has grown into a roughly $600 million pool despite the past months' crypto headwinds. As the world is migrating onchain and traditional financial rails and blockchain rails are becoming increasingly intertwined, Aave is positioned to sit close to the center of that flow. Stani Kulechov Aave CoinDesk Most Influential 2025 More For You Protocol Research: GoPlus Security By CoinDesk Research Nov 14, 2025 Commissioned by GoPlus What to know : As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M. GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month. Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B. View Full Report More For You Most Influential: Sam Altman By Margaux Nijkerk | Edited by Cheyenne Ligon Dec 18, 2025 OpenAI founder Sam Altman brought artificial intelligence into every corner of people’s lives this year, from the way they work to the way they play. AI has already radically transformed the crypto ecosystem in both good ways and bad, guiding trading decisions, aiding developers, and making hackers more efficient. Read full story Latest Crypto News DraftKings enters prediction markets with CFTC-approved app for real-world events 4 minutes ago Wall Street bank JPMorgan says stablecoin market could grow to $600 billion by 2028 6 minutes ago CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Jumps 4.6% as All Constituents Trade Higher 46 minutes ago Poland’s lower house approves crypto law again, sends vetoed bill back to Senate 51 minutes ago Re-litigating the GENIUS Act Brings Risk and No Rewards 1 hour ago Bitcoin gains as yen surprisingly tumbles after BOJ rate hike: Crypto Daybook Americas 2 hours ago Top Stories Bitcoin gains as yen surprisingly tumbles after BOJ rate hike: Crypto Daybook Americas 2 hours ago Jump Trading sued for $4 billion in connection to Do Kwon’s Terra Labs collapse: WSJ 3 hours ago Coinbase files lawsuits in 3 states over attempts to regulate prediction markets 4 hours ago Re-litigating the GENIUS Act Brings Risk and No Rewards 1 hour ago What if crypto's U.S. market structure effort just never gets there? 19 hours ago Senate confirms Trump crypto-friendly nominees to take over CFTC, FDIC 13 hours ago