Compare AAVE vs Luno

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.

WARNING: Crypto withdrawals are severely restricted in Europe to a maximum of 500 euros per week.

In order to make withdrawals from Luno you must first enable send mode on the app. Once you requested that this mode is enabled you will then need to wait 24 hours before the mode is enabled. Whilst this does provide extra security, it can be annoying if you want to withdraw the funds quickly and have not already enabled this mode.

In our tests, withdrawals were processed quickly once "send mode" had been enabled. Withdrawal requests were processed by Luno within a few minutes of the request being made and funds were normally received in less than a hour.

Luno does not charge withdrawal fees, however you do still have to pay the network fee to withdraw from the platform. This fee will be deducted form the amount that is sent.

There is no record of Luno ever having frozen withdrawals.

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.

Luno offers the usual security features to prevent unauthorised access to crypto assets. The majority of crypto assets are stored in cold storage, secured and insured by BitGo. A hot wallet is used to store working capital and this wallet is a three key multisignature wallet, meaning that more than one key is required to access the funds and each key is stored in a different, secure location. Two factor authentication is available within the Luno app to make access to your account more secure.

Luno employs Mazars, an accountancy firm, to independently verify that the value of the crypto assets stored with Luno do actually exist. An example of the report can be found here. This audit is undertaken quarterly. It should be noted that the the audit verifies that the total value of the assets currently held by Luno exceeds the total value of customer liabilities (deposits). This demonstrates that any loans that Luno has made of depositor's funds have been overcollareralised (i.e. Luno has secured collateral of a greater value than the loan amount before granting the loan). The audit does not consider the liquidity of those collateral assets, meaning how easy it would be to sell those assets at market value if Luno was forced to sell them to cover a bad debt.

In order to generate yield, Luno lends out funds via Genesis, the world's largest digital asset lender. The exact lending strategy used and types of loans issued is not clear, but some reassurance can be taken from that the all loans are granted through this provider and the Mazar's indpendent audit proves that Luno has overcollateralised its loans.

Luno has embraced regulation and sought to preempt regulatory obligations by implementing some of the anticpiate policies before they were forced to do so.

Luno are very careful to prevent unauthorised withdrawals. By default, withdrawals from your wallet are not enabled. You will need to manually enabled "send mode" to allow withdrawals, and as an additional security precaution, this takes 24 hours to be activated.