Compare AAVE vs Ledn

The AAVE platform is fully decentralised and all deposits and withdrawls are handled completely automatically. This means withdrawls are very fast, and simply depend on the speed of the Ethereum network or side chain. There are no records of AAVE withdrawls being halted or frozen.

Ledn has a very simple model. As soon as you deposit either BTC or USDC then those deposits immediately start earning interest. There is no need to manually transfer the money to a savings account once on the Ledn platform. This means that when you need to withdraw funds, you can withdraw them directly from the savings account. Savings accounts have no lock in period and you can withdraw your funds at any time.

Withdrawals are processed manually and Ledn states that the vast majority of requests are processed within 24 hours, but that the terms of the savings account stipulate that it can take up to 7 days. In our tests, withdrawals took about 30 hours from the time of request to the funds arriving in your wallet.

Ledn does not charge any withdrawal fees on BTC, however you must pay the miner's fees associated with the withdrawal. These fees will be deducted from the amount that you withdraw. There is a minimum withdrawal amount of 0.0005 BTC. For USDC withdrawals a fee does apply which is 35 USDC.

Ledn state in their FAQ that some withdrawal requests may require a confirmatory video call with the platform.

To date Ledn has never frozen withdrawals on any of their currencies.

AAVE is itself a liquidity pool and some people consider this entire ecosystem to be higher risk. Having said this, AAVE's system has held up well to date, with no major hacks or security breaches.

AAVE is complex product and there remains a risk of a major bug or vulnerability in the code. To counteract this risk AAVE's protocol code is open source so it can be reviewed by anybody, plus it has been through multiple security audits. Finally, there is and active bug bounty campaign with rewards of up to $250,000 for the identification of a critical code issue.

The other key area of risk is in the loan liquidation process. In the event that a loan needs to be liquidated it may not be possible to generate sufficient funds through the sale of the collateral to cover the loan. For example there may be insufficient in the collateral token marketplace to realise the expected value of the collateral.

Ledn accounts feature 2 factor authentication for key activities such as login and withdrawals. You can whitelist withdrawal addresses so that funds can only be sent to those addresses. You can also add a personal anti-phishing phrase to the site. This phrase will be included in any emails sent to you which will help you to verify that the email was sent by Ledn and not an impersonator.

Ledn state in their FAQs that assets deposited on the platform are not loaned out to borrowers and instead 100% of these deposits are stored with a third party cold storage custodian, Bitgo. However, elsewhere in their FAQs they state that they may in fact lend out these assets to a borrower and will not necessarily hold an equivalent amount of crypto as collateral. They go on to state that their primary borrower is Genesis. So we have mixed messages from Ledn about the extent to which deposits are loaned out, but in all likelihood deposits are loaned out as this is how they generate a return to pass on to you.

One unique feature of Ledn is that you can verify that your deposit really does exist in Ledn's accounts. This is done by way of a an attestation by Armanino LLP, a top tier accountancy firm. The Ledn web app provides a link to the Armanino asset verification page. Here you can enter a unique hash associated with your account which then reveals Armanino audit of your personal assets. The ability to verify personal individual assets in this way is quite unique and very reassuring. Other platforms that have implemented proof of reserves systems normally show that the total assets of the company exceed total customer liabilities, but there is no way to verify your individual assets.