Aave Labs announced on May 28 that its UK subsidiaries, Push Labs Ltd. and Push Virtual Assets Ltd., received registration from the Financial Conduct Authority as crypto asset exchange providers. The FCA also authorized the firms to issue electronic money under the UK's Electronic Money Regulations 2011. The move gives Aave a regulated path to bring fiat currency into its ecosystem — something founder Stani Kulechov described as a ‘vertically integrated zero-fee on-ramp.’
A zero-fee bridge from fiat to DeFi
The two Push entities were assigned firm reference numbers 1031720 and 1031721, while the e-money authorization carries reference 900984. With the FCA stamp, Aave can now offer UK users a direct channel to move pounds into the protocol without traditional exchange fees. Kulechov linked the registration to broader regulatory plans, noting that Aave is also pursuing a MiCA license through the Central Bank of Ireland for European Economic Area operations.
Aave V4 heads to Avalanche
Alongside the UK news, Aave published a governance Temp Check proposal to deploy Aave V4 on Avalanche. The plan includes a liquidity hub for tokenized real-world assets. Former Ava Labs executive Luigi D'Onorio DeMeo said Avalanche has a ‘huge opportunity’ to build on-chain capital markets around Aave V4. The vote is open to AAVE token holders, and if it passes, it would mark one of the first major V4 deployments outside Ethereum.
DeFi safety under fire after OpenZeppelin warning
Not everyone is cheering. OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz stated he considers ‘all DeFi unsafe’ due to AI-powered coding tools, naming Aave as one platform he no longer thinks is safe. The comment comes weeks after Aave was hit by an exploit in April on KelpDAO. The Aave DAO used roughly $58 million from its treasury to cover losses tied to rsETH depositors, and Kulechov personally pledged 5,000 ETH toward the ‘DeFi United’ initiative to stabilize markets after the exploit created a deficit of over 100,000 ETH.
AAVE slides amid broader market pressure
At the time of writing, AAVE token was trading around $81, down 5% in 24 hours and nearly 10% over the past week. The monthly decline sits at 17%. Still, Aave remains one of the largest DeFi lending protocols with over $13.6 billion in total value locked. The FCA registration may provide a regulatory anchor, but the price action shows the market is focused on near-term headwinds. The Temp Check vote on the Avalanche deployment is the next concrete event for the protocol — and a signal of how far Aave is willing to stretch beyond its home chain.
