Aave V4 Liquidity Model
Aave V4 manages liquidity through Liquidity Hubs, Spokes, and Reserves. This page explains how capital flows between them and how new markets access existing liquidity.
Liquidity Hubs
Liquidity Hubs are the central settlement layer of Aave V4. Each Hub aggregates liquidity, manages credit lines, enforces risk parameters, and operates under governance controls. This design allows new markets to tap into established pools without fragmenting liquidity.
Assets are held at the Liquidity Hub, which governs how Spokes can access and use them. Governance defines liquidity caps, credit allocations, and risk parameters for each supported asset.
Different Hub types can be deployed for specific purposes (from conservative stablecoin liquidity to higher-yield, higher-risk configurations), each operating under its own governance model.
Spokes
Spokes are specialized smart contracts that connect to Hubs. They define user-facing logic such as collateral requirements, liquidation conditions, and oracle pricing while drawing on Hub liquidity. This keeps the complexity of user interactions isolated from the Hub layer.
Credit lines govern Spoke access to Hub Assets, setting limits and conditions for borrowing. A Spoke may connect to multiple Hubs, giving it flexibility to tap different risk profiles or liquidity sources.
Risk is isolated at the Spoke level: issues in one Spoke do not affect Hubs or other Spokes.
Reserves
Reserves are managed at the Spoke level and represent the accounting units for specific assets within each Spoke. They track deposits, borrows, repayments, and interest accrual while enforcing supply caps and user-specific configurations.
Governance defines how much of the Hub’s underlying assets can be allocated to each Spoke reserve through credit lines, adjusting dynamically based on demand and risk conditions.