Aave Labs announced on May 28 that its UK-based subsidiaries, Push Labs Ltd. and Push Virtual Assets Ltd., have been granted registration by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate as crypto asset exchange providers in the United Kingdom.
Regulatory Approvals and Services
The approval also grants the firms permission to issue electronic money under the UK’s Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Aave stated on X that the approvals would enable “regulated cryptoasset activities and payments infrastructure” in the UK, including stablecoin on- and off-ramping services. The companies were assigned firm reference numbers 1031720 and 1031721, while Push’s electronic money authorization carries reference number 900984.
According to Aave founder Stani Kulechov, this setup will allow users to move fiat currency directly into the Aave ecosystem through what he described as a “vertically integrated zero-fee on-ramp.” He also linked the FCA registration to Aave’s broader regulatory plans in Europe, referencing the company’s MiCA license through the Central Bank of Ireland for operations across the European Economic Area.
Recent Developments and Community Response
The announcement comes at a busy time for the protocol. Earlier this week, Aave published a governance “Temp Check” proposal to deploy Aave V4 on Avalanche, including a dedicated liquidity hub for tokenized real-world assets. Former Ava Labs executive Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo wrote on X that Avalanche had a “huge opportunity” to build on-chain capital markets around the new version of the protocol.
The DeFi sector is facing renewed scrutiny following several major exploits this year. OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz warned users on X that he now considers “all DeFi unsafe,” arguing that AI-powered coding tools have tilted the balance in favor of attackers. He named Aave as one of the platforms he no longer considers safe.
Aave was affected by an exploit in April on KelpDAO. However, recent community discussion has focused on its response, with analyst Jose Fabrega praising Aave DAO for using roughly $58 million from its treasury to help cover losses tied to rsETH depositors after the incident. An April 25 report on the recovery effort showed Kulechov personally pledged 5,000 ETH toward the “DeFi United” initiative formed to stabilize markets after the exploit created a deficit of more than 100,000 ETH across connected protocols.
Market Performance
Despite the UK approval, data from CoinGecko showed that at the time of writing, Aave’s native AAVE token had dipped about 5% in 24 hours to trade at around $81. This figure also represented a nearly 10% drop during the last seven days, as well as a 17% fall over the past month. Still, Aave remains one of the largest DeFi lending protocols, with more than $13.6 billion in total value locked (TVL).
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