Aave transfers the lens protocol management to the mask network
Decentralized financial (DeFi) protocol Aave has transferred coordination of social infrastructure protocol Lens to the Mask network, shifting responsibility for promoting consumer-facing social apps while keeping Lens as an open-source infrastructure.
Statements from both Lens and Ave founder Stany Kulekov confirmed the transition. On Tuesday, Kulekov told XPost that Aave's role will be reduced to technical advisory support as it refocuses on DeFi.
He added that Mask Network, a Web3 company focused on integrating blockchain features into social and messaging platforms, will lead the next phase of development for Lens, particularly at the application and product layers.
While the announcement framed the move as a change in “stewardship,” neither Lens nor Ave described it as an acquisition or exit from the social infrastructure.
Cointelegraph reached out to Lens for more information, but did not receive a response by press time.
How responsibilities change under lens transition
Under the new setup, Mask Network will assume responsibility for consumer-execution, including product roadmap decisions, user experience design and day-to-day operational management for social apps built on Lens.
This includes developing apps like Orb and shaping how lens-based products are positioned and distributed to end users.
According to Lens and Ave, the basic components of the protocol, including the onchain social graph, profiles, series and smart contracts, will remain open source and permissionless.
There was no sign of transfer of protocol ownership, intellectual property, treasury or management control as part of the transition.
Ave said he will continue to act as a technical advisor, providing input on protocol-level decisions without leading product development. The move narrows Ave's role from building and operating social products to maintaining its social infrastructure.
Lens infrastructure – The first vision is before delivery.
Since its early days, the Lens protocol has been designed as an infrastructure. In the year In 2022, Ave launched Lens as a Web3-native social protocol designed to give users ownership of their social identity and content through onchain profiles and non-perishable tokens (NFTs).
That setting has been reinforced in later updates. In the year In 2023, Kulekov says the Lens protocol is not intended to act as a front-end platform, but as a common social layer that allows both Web3 and Web2 applications to connect to a common social graph and user base.
At the time, Kulekov told Cointelegraph that Lens' shared audience would allow developers to overcome the “cold start” problem faced by new social platforms and allow multiple apps to coexist without competing for captive users.
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Vitalik Buterin supports a decentralized social between lens transition
Following the Lens stewardship transition, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin praised the evolution of Lens, saying that the Aave team “has done a great job in leading Lens up to this point” and is “excited about what will happen with Lens over the next year.”
Buterin also commented on decentralized social platforms, arguing that competition enabled by shared data layers is critical to improving online discourse.
“If we want a better society, we need better mass media,” Buterin said in a post published on Wednesday. Decentralization enables this, he said, “allowing for a shared data layer where anyone can build their own client on top of it.”
Buterin says he will return to decentralized social platforms in 2026, every post he made or read this year is multi-client, supporting Firefly, Lens, Farcaster, X and Bluesky.
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