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Stani Kulechov is a Finnish programmer, entrepreneur, and the founder of the Aave protocol (formerly ETHLend). Kulechov is primarily active in the cryptocurrency, blockchain, and fintech (financial technology) industries.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Stani Kulechov graduated from the University of Helsinki in 2018 with a master’s degree in Law. While studying at the University of Helsinki, Kulechov worked in the legal field as a Trainee in Castrén & Snellman (January 2017 – May 2017), a Trainee at Bird & Bird (August 2017 – November 2017), and Member of the Legal Aid Committee of the Law Students Association Pykälä ry.
Cointelegraph writes that Kulechov became interested in finance and got involved in fintech communities at the University of Helsinki. Ethereum and the concept of smart contracts inspired him to create a decentralized financial ecosystem and to make “financial products more efficient.”
Early in his career, Kulechov was a Volunteer at Slush as well as a Trainee as several firms including Mäkitalo Rantanen & Co Oy, Castrén & Snellman, and Bird & Bird. In June 2017, he founded and became CEO of ETHLend, a decentralized lending platform built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Now known as Aave, Kulechov has transitioned into open source and non-custodial protocol that enables the creation of money markets which users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets. Recently, Aave surpassed $70M in market size putting them on the PwC Top 50 Blockchain Startups list.
Kulechov launched ETHLend in 2017. ETHLend was a peer-to-peer digital asset lending and borrowing platform, as well as one of the first decentralized platforms, according to Cointelegraph.
In 2018, ETHLend was renamed Aave and expanded its focus beyond lending and Ethereum.
The Aave protocol was officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet in January 2020. In August 2020, Aave became the second DeFi (decentralized finance) protocol to reach $1 billion in total value locked. The first DeFi protocol to hit $1 billion in total value locked was Rune Christensen’s MakerDAO.
In August 2020, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) granted Aave an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, Cointelegraph writes. Subsequently, Aave’s former native token LEND surged 30% from $0.59 to $0.77 (an all-time high at the time).
On August 15, 2020, Aave announced V2 of its protocol. Kulechov announced the launch of Aave V2 on mainnet on December 3, 2020. Aave V2 brought yield & collateral swap, one-step repayment with collateral, and reduced transaction fees, among many other things.
There is no confirmed information about Stani Kulechov’s net worth online.
On a related note, however, the total value locked in Aave is well into the billions of dollars, according to DeFi Pulse. At the time of this writing, Aave was the second largest DeFi protocol by total value locked after MakerDAO.
Stani Kulechov can be found on Twitter, Instagram, as well as on the Medium blogging platform.
Cointelegraph named Kulechov one of the top 100 notable figures in blockchain in 2021. The likes of Gavin Wood, Jesse Powell, Anthony Pompliano, Hayden Adams, and Rune Christensen were also on the list.
Stani Kulechov has been featured on Raoul Pal’s Real Vision and the CoinGecko podcast. In early 2020, Ethereum London featured Kulechov’s announcement of Aave as well.
