Acier

Acier is a new lending and borrowing protocol co-founded by Marc Zeller and Eboado. Zeller was long a core contributor in the Aave ecosystem and the public face of the Aave Chan Initiative, while Eboado comes from BGD Labs, another firm closely tied to Aave's technical development. Acier is therefore an independent protocol built by people from Aave's contributor ecosystem rather than part of Aave itself, and that provenance means it has been examined under a magnifying glass by the Aave governance community from day one.

On product, the positioning is lending: the standard money-market structure where suppliers provide assets, borrowers take loans against overcollateralised positions, rates adjust automatically with utilisation, and liquidations trigger when collateral value falls below the required threshold. It should be stated plainly that Acier's public technical documentation and operating data remained limited as of October 2026; verifiable product detail largely stops at "a new lending protocol", with no citable public material yet on the specific collateral list, risk parameters or audit status. What actually brought it into public view was a governance dispute. On October 24, 2026, a poster describing themselves as a former ACI employee and current Acier investor published a thread on Aave's governance forum titled "Question regarding Acier's alleged misrepresentation and deception of investors", alleging that Zeller misrepresented the venture's ownership structure in the pitch deck used to raise money, including what the author describes as a direct quote from Eboado, and urging the Aave governance community not to use Acier's platform.

Future strategy and roadmap: from public information the direction is to ship a lending product differentiated from existing money markets and win users and liquidity from the Aave ecosystem, but as of October 2026 neither party had responded publicly to the allegation and no roadmap detail had been disclosed. Risk must be flagged up front: the dispute is at this stage a single-sourced allegation posted under a forum account, with no independent confirmation or response from Acier, Zeller or Eboado, and should be treated as unresolved rather than as a confirmed finding. The founders' deep ties to Aave also mean any negative governance sentiment transmits directly to Acier's reputation, while a new lending protocol at cold start additionally faces thin liquidity, liquidation parameters untested by a full cycle, and smart contract risk.

Marc Zeller — Co-founder; founded the Aave ecosystem governance and delegate organization Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), and after its March 2026 wind-down co-founded the lending protocol Acier, holding one third of it.

Eboado — Co-founder; from BGD Labs, the core Aave V3 development team, which holds two thirds.

Mark Agranovski — leads business development.