Share this article
Aave’s Decentralized Social Media Platform Arrives on Polygon
The launch of Lens Protocol comes weeks after Aave founder Stani Kulechov was temporarily suspended from Twitter.
By Cam Thompson
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:22 p.m. Published May 18, 2022, 1:07 p.m.
Weeks after Aave founder Stani Kulechov was temporarily suspended from Twitter for proclaiming himself “interim CEO of Twitter,” the decentralized finance (DeFi) lender’s long-teased decentralized social media platform is going live.
Lens Protocol opened on the Polygon blockchain mainnet Wednesday, Kulechov announced onstage at the Permissionless conference in Palm Beach, Florida. Built by Aave Companies, it allows developers to build their own decentralized social media networks in which users fully own their data.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
“All [Web 3] innovation has been driven by the idea of ownership,” said Kulechov via Telegram. “Web 3 social ensures that users are in control of their content which makes the applications and algorithms compete on bringing the best experience layer to the users.”
The protocol was first announced in February, but today people can starting minting their profiles, an Aave spokesperson said, noting about 50 apps are already built on Lens.
Social graph protocols are popping up across the blockchain space to fight concerns about data ownership. Siloed data-buster CyberConnect said Tuesday it raised $15 million to build out its protocol. And Twitter founder Jack Dorsey has long backed efforts to experiment with decentralized social media concepts, too.
Aave’s Lens differs in its focus on non-fungible tokens (NFTs): each creator gets their own. These “profile” NFTs link to their followers and communities and interact with the 50+ platforms available at launch.
Aave has additionally launched a $250,000 grants program to fund projects seeking to build decentralized applications (dapps) on Lens.
Speaking at the Permissionless crypto event on Wednesday morning, Kulechov said Aave and Lens share the same ethos.
“We believe that the ownership of content and profiles should belong to you in the way that DeFi belongs to you,” he said.
UPDATE (May 18, 13:27 UTC): Adds on-stage Kulechov comment.
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
JPMorgan Pushes Deeper Into Tokenization With Galaxy's Debt Issuance on Solana
Galaxy’s onchain debt deal, where JP Morgan acted as arranger, was settled in USDC stablecoin and backed by Coinbase and Franklin Templeton.
What to know:
- J.P. Morgan arranged Galaxy Digital’s commercial paper issuance on the Solana blockchain, one of the first of its kind in the U.S.
- Coinbase and Franklin Templeton bought the short-term debt instrument, settled in USDC
- Tokenization of real-world assets is gaining traction, with projections suggesting the market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033.
Top Stories
