Aave started onboarding early users to its iOS mobile app on Wednesday, moving its consumer-facing savings product into early access while Android and web access remains gated by a waitlist. Founder Stani Kulechov said users holding Ghost Passes can invite friends to skip that queue. The move is a phased rollout, not the app’s first appearance in Apple’s App Store. The listing was already live and had shown a recent version update before the onboarding notice. Aave’s current product positioning centers on savings functions: deposits, yield generation and withdrawals. Users can connect bank accounts and debit cards, and the stablecoin wallet supports deposits and withdrawals on Arbitrum. Aave says deposited assets are supplied to lending pools, with borrower interest passed back to depositors. The product page does not promote direct borrowing or a user-directed trading feature. In July, Aave Labs said card fees, asset swaps and foreign-exchange products were expected to roll out in phases during 2026, while noting that swap and FX functions had not yet been built or approved for launch. The company also said its Stable Vaults now power the app’s savings layer as Aave continues its push into retail distribution.

Aave began opening its iOS mobile app to early users on Wednesday, moving its consumer savings product into an early-access phase while Android and web users remain on a waitlist. Aave founder Stani Kulechov said Ghost Pass lets users invite friends to skip the line. The app is positioned as a savings product that supports deposits from bank accounts and stablecoins, with users able to link bank accounts and debit cards. Its stablecoin wallet currently supports deposits and withdrawals on Arbitrum. Funds deposited through the app generate yield through public lending markets, where assets are supplied to lending pools and interest paid by borrowers flows back to depositors. Aave Labs said in July that the iOS waitlist had about 50,000 registered users. The company describes the app as self-custodial even though it includes login and recovery features similar to fintech apps. Its terms say private keys for embedded wallets are generated and stored locally, while Aave Labs does not hold user assets or keys and uses smart account abstraction for wallet setup and gas management. The launch also ties into Aave’s retail distribution push after acquiring Stable Finance in October 2025.

A draft Ethereum proposal known as EIP-8361 would gradually increase the share of newly issued validator rewards that gets burned as the staking ratio rises, reaching a full burn at about 60.25 million ETH staked, or roughly half of supply. The mechanism leaves transaction fees and tips untouched and targets only newly issued ETH, with a phase-in period of about 18 months plus roughly six months for rollout. The proposal, signed by six researchers including Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, argues that staking should not expand without limit because growing yields can pull ETH into large exchanges and staking providers, squeezing out smaller solo stakers and weakening decentralization. Critics from DeFi and liquid staking have pushed back. Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov said pushing staking rewards toward zero would make many ETH borrowing strategies unworkable, while ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze criticized both the process and the likely market effects. The draft arrived only days before the Aug. 6 deadline for smaller changes to be considered for Ethereum’s planned Hegotá upgrade, leaving open whether it can make the cut.

A heavy 24-hour news cycle in crypto and adjacent tech markets was led by SpaceX’s first earnings report as a public company, which showed $7.8 billion in second-quarter revenue, 18,712 BTC on its balance sheet, and roughly $540 million in unrealized losses after Bitcoin fell 33% in the quarter. Coldcard’s wallet security incident kept escalating as the company urged users to migrate funds, while Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn said at least 15 attackers have now been identified through victim reports and on-chain tracing. In South Korea, Upbit and Bithumb both moved to list QUID, while on-chain flows highlighted a new wallet buying CASHCAT, a 40x leveraged BTC short on Hyperliquid, HYPE unstaking, and another Strategy-linked BTC transfer. Elsewhere, U.S. crypto policy centered on the CLARITY Act and fresh political friction around Trump’s TRUMP meme coin, while institutions expanded tokenized finance, staking, and custody services through Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, Circle, Dinari, and Cloudflare. Markets also tracked BIP-110 activation risk, lower Bitcoin implied volatility, Ethereum staking policy debate, major AI infrastructure deals, and a long list of company, macro, and semiconductor updates.

Aave said a forged bridge message released 116,500 rsETH, which attackers used on Aave to borrow WETH and wstETH. Emergency freezes, partner coordination, and recovery commitments of about $300 million helped restore full backing of 116,131.72 rsETH by May 26, 2026.

Aave saw about $27 million in liquidations after a CAPO oracle configuration error mispriced wstETH. Around 34 accounts and more than 10,900 positions were affected. Chaos Labs said impacted users will be fully reimbursed.

Marc Zeller of Aave Chan Initiative said Aave Labs received about $86 million since 2017, while six standalone products failed or did not reach sustainable profitability. The report also questioned Horizon’s economics and governance decisions.

After a KelpDAO bridge exploit triggered $8.45 billion in withdrawals from Aave in 48 hours, founder Stani Kulechov said the protocol proved resilient and said V4 will redesign risk management.