Aave DAO cleared an important governance milestone after token holders voted overwhelmingly in favor of the V4 mainnet plan. The result moved the proposal past an early procedural stage and gave the protocol its clearest signal yet that the community is aligned behind the next major upgrade.
The vote was not close. More than 645,000 votes were cast in support, with fewer than one against and no abstentions, underscoring how strongly the proposal resonated across governance participants.
Aave V4 has successfully passed the ARFC stage. Our team has been working hard to bring Aave V4 to mainnet.
Next up: final AIP deployment and a safe, controlled, security-first launch. https://t.co/KbyjHHetkd
— Stani.eth (@StaniKulechov) March 23, 2026
Governance Now Moves Into the Binding Phase
The March 24 approval activated the Aave Request for Comment, or ARFC, and pushed the process forward to the next formal step. The decision does not put V4 live on Ethereum by itself, but it authorizes the proposal to advance toward the binding governance process required for deployment.
Under the roadmap outlined in the governance materials, the next key checkpoint is expected in early April 2026. A Snapshot vote is planned first, followed by a formal Aave Improvement Proposal, which would be the on-chain vote needed to approve and activate V4.
Supporters presented the near-unanimous outcome as more than a technical win. The scale of the backing was framed as a sign of renewed governance cohesion after a period marked by internal tensions and contributor exits.
At the core of the proposal is a structural redesign intended to improve how Aave manages liquidity and risk. V4 is built around a modular hub-and-spoke architecture that concentrates liquidity in shared Hubs while allowing Spokes to run tailored and isolated lending markets.
That model is meant to address one of Aave’s longstanding inefficiencies. By reducing fragmentation across a protocol footprint described as exceeding $25 billion, the upgrade aims to preserve market depth while improving risk segmentation by asset class.
A Technical Upgrade With Strategic Implications
The plan also introduces a shift in accounting design. V4 adopts an ERC-4626-style price-per-share framework that is intended to make yield accounting and integrations cleaner than the rebasing methods used before.
Another major feature is automation. The proposal includes a risk engine designed to adjust collateral factors and rates in real time, a change supporters say can improve responsiveness during volatility while also reducing some gas costs.
V4 is also tied to a broader strategic refocus around Ethereum. The roadmap signals a retreat from weaker Layer-2 and alternative Layer-1 deployments, emphasizing that more than 86.6% of Aave revenue currently comes from Ethereum mainnet.
The community has approved a path, not a launch. If the next votes pass and development remains on schedule, Aave is targeting a late-2026 mainnet deployment for V4.