Aave V4 na Avalanche překročil 30 milionů USD v celkové hodnotě vkladů. Zároveň Aave Labs oznámila plán spustit RWA Hub pro instituce na Avalanche s podporou USA₮.
Aave V4 has crossed $30 million in total deposits on Avalanche, a milestone that underscores growing appetite for decentralized lending infrastructure as tokenized real-world assets move toward active credit markets.
An RWA Hub Built for Institutions The deposit milestone follows a September 16 announcement from Aave Labs outlining plans to launch a dedicated RWA Hub on Avalanche. The market will let institutions borrow against tokenized assets without selling their underlying positions. The hub will initially support USA₮, the dollar stablecoin issued by federally chartered Anchorage Digital Bank with operational and technical support from Tether.
The RWA Hub will run through the Aave V4 deployment already live on Avalanche, using the protocol's Hub and Spoke architecture to create specialized credit markets with their own collateral rules and risk parameters while remaining connected to Aave's broader liquidity network. In practical terms, institutional risk is contained within dedicated sub-markets rather than pooled into the main protocol.
USA₮ will serve as the inaugural borrowing asset, giving approved participants a dollar-denominated source of liquidity. Eligible collateral is expected to include tokenized Treasuries, private credit, and real estate, though a formal launch date has not yet been disclosed.
Avalanche as a Tokenization Hub Aave V4 launched on Avalanche in July 2026, its first V4 deployment outside Ethereum. The total tokenized RWA market has climbed 40% since the start of 2026, moving above $51 billion, according to data cited in the announcement. Avalanche has positioned itself as a key destination for that growth. John Nahas, chief business officer at Ava Labs, said institutions adopting tokenized assets will need ways to borrow against their holdings and obtain liquidity, similar to how financial firms use collateral in traditional markets.
Aave ranks as the largest decentralized finance lending platform by total value locked, according to DeFiLlama. The Avalanche deployment is widely seen as a template for future V4 rollouts on other chains.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Aave plans RWA Hub on Avalanche with USA₮ support
Crypto News: Aave plans Avalanche RWA hub with Tether's USA₮
Zest Protocol spustil omezenou demo verzi na mainnetu, která umožňuje půjčky kryté BTC bez opuštění sítě Bitcoin. Zástava zůstává na Bitcoin L1, zatímco úvěr je čerpán v USDC na Ethereu.
Only about 0.8% of Bitcoin's supply works in DeFi, and most wrapped tokens rely on custodians.Zest Protocol has opened a capped mainnet demo that lets BTC back loans without leaving Bitcoin.Each vault holds one user's BTC on Bitcoin, while the demo loan is drawn in USDC on Ethereum.Bitcoin is the largest crypto asset by market value, yet almost all of it sits still. Spark’s research counted 91,332 BTC across Bitcoin layer-2 networks in May 2026, or about 0.46% of the circulating supply. Adding every wrapped token and all Babylon staking lifts the share to only about 0.8%.
Most holders who do put BTC to work wrap it first. A custodian keeps the real coins, and a token such as WBTC stands in for them on Ethereum (ETH). Any loan taken against that token then depends on the custodian and its redemption system staying sound.
WBTC holders were reminded of that dependency in August 2024. BitGo said it would shift custody of WBTC to a joint venture with Justin Sun-linked BiT Global.
Aave’s Ethereum market held about $2.2 billion in supplied WBTC at the time, according to risk manager Chaos Labs. Coinbase went further and delisted WBTC in December 2024. When BiT Global sued over the decision, Coinbase’s court filing cited the risk that control would “fall into the hands of Justin Sun.”
Zest Protocol, which runs a Bitcoin lending market on Stacks, is testing a route that leaves the coins on Bitcoin. On September 23, it launched a capped mainnet demo of its Bitcoin Collateral Vaults. It lets holders borrow against BTC on EVM chains without wrapping it.
Bitcoin is the strongest collateral asset ever created, and the least used.
Bitcoin Collateral Vaults keep BTC on Bitcoin Layer 1 while its value works elsewhere. Building the capital layer for Bitcoin.
— Zest Protocol (@ZestProtocol) September 11, 2026
How a Vault on Bitcoin Backs a Loan on EVM Chains
According to the firm, Bitcoin Collateral Vaults are self-custodial vaults on Bitcoin L1. Bitcoin’s own rules govern how they can be spent, and the design is intended to support BitVM proof verification.
Each vault holds one user’s BTC, and coins from different users are never pooled, according to the documentation. Each vault is a Taproot output with spending paths fixed at the deposit, which limits where the BTC can move.
The loan happens on an EVM chain, which is Ethereum in the demo. On that chain, the Bitcoin vault is represented by a collateral record tied only to it. The borrower uses that record to draw USDC from a connected lending market while the BTC stays in the vault.
Positions can change size after they open. Borrowers can add collateral or withdraw the excess if Bitcoin’s price rises. Liquidations can also be partial, settling a pre-set amount and returning the rest to the vault in BTC. Zest says other vault designs can only release collateral in full.
The design also plans for the destination chain failing. If the chain went offline for good, the depositor could still reclaim eligible BTC after a Bitcoin timelock expires. That recovery needs only the user’s own key and public vault data, with no signature from Zest.
“We’ve spent five years on programmable Bitcoin, first on Stacks and now on Bitcoin itself. Today you can put real BTC in a vault on Bitcoin and borrow against it on mainnet,” said Tycho Onnasch, founder of Zest Protocol.
Each wallet is subject to a collateral cap until external audits are complete, after which Zest plans to launch to production.
Zest’s summary of vault features. Source: Zest Protocol
Guardians Stand Watch Until BitVM Takes Over
Bitcoin enforces the vault’s spending rules, but each settlement still needs a separate check. In the first production phase, independent guardians handle that check, according to Zest.
When an event such as a repayment or liquidation happens on the lending chain, an attestation triggers a settlement that the borrower authorized in advance. Guardians check that settlement, and a quorum of them can reverse an invalid payout during a contest window.
Reversed BTC returns to the vault set out in the rules. The document says no operator can add outcomes, change amounts, or redirect payouts once the vault is set.
Zest plans to shift that role to BitVM, a system for verifying computation on Bitcoin without changing its rules. Under Zest’s planned design, a party claiming a repayment or liquidation posts that claim on Bitcoin.
Challengers then have a set window to dispute it, which forces the claimant to submit a zero-knowledge proof. An invalid proof lets the challenger block the withdrawal. The documentation notes that security depends on the construction Zest selects and an honest challenger acting in time.
Zest points to published BitVM3 benchmarks that put onchain costs under $100. Those figures rest on the benchmarks’ own assumptions, and earlier designs cost thousands.
A Rival Design Puts Zest’s Guardians Under the Spotlight
Zest is one of several teams trying to keep BTC collateral on Bitcoin. Babylon Labs proposed a similar vault system for Aave V4 in May, also built on Taproot outputs. Babylon’s proposal says redemption relies on zero-knowledge proofs and challenges, with no custodian or signer group holding discretionary control over the BTC.
Zest’s first production phase, by contrast, relies on guardians until its own BitVM verification goes live. The company has not disclosed who the guardians are or how many form a quorum. It also has not detailed how long liquidation timelocks or contest windows last.
Both designs face the same practical tests. One commenter on Babylon’s Aave proposal asked how liquidations would hold up during market stress. The same post questioned challenger incentives and how long redemptions on Bitcoin would take. Zest’s vaults will face those questions, too, once the caps lift.
Holders who never trusted a wrapper may want the guardians named before locking up more than a test amount.
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Aave has switched on USDC deposits from Base inside its mobile app, marking a quiet but meaningful step in the protocol’s push to bring decentralized lending to a phone screen near you. The feature is live now, and it lands on top of a Base market that has already accumulated somewhere between $178 million and $182 million in USDC deposits.
Aave’s V3 market on Base has been running since 2023, quietly processing loans and earning yield for depositors without most retail investors ever noticing. The current utilization rate on that market sits at roughly 89 to 90 percent, which is a finance way of saying almost every dollar deposited is already being borrowed by someone else.
High utilization is a double-edged situation. Lenders love it because it pushes yields up. Borrowers feel it in their cost of capital, with current borrow rates on the V3 market sitting around 4.6%. For depositors, the Aave app is advertising USDC and USDT yields in the 3% to 6.5% range depending on where market conditions land on any given day.
The iOS app entered early access in August 2026. A full public launch is on the calendar for later this year. The early access phase has functioned as a live beta, letting Aave gather real usage data before opening the floodgates to a broader audience.
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Base earns its place in this story for a specific reason: USDC on Base is issued natively by Circle, which means users are working with a first-party asset rather than a bridged version of one. Bridged assets carry smart contract risk from the bridge itself. Native issuance removes that layer entirely, which is a meaningful distinction for anyone who has watched a bridge exploit drain liquidity from a protocol.
The Chainlink layer underneath Cross-chain operations inside the Aave app run on Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, known as CCIP. The integration means users can deposit and transfer across networks without manually routing assets through third-party bridges or managing multiple wallet states.
Automatic compounding of yields is part of the feature set, which removes another manual step that has historically kept casual users from sticking with DeFi products long enough to see meaningful returns.
The broader context: Aave’s scale and Base’s momentum Aave’s cumulative loan volume across all its markets crossed $150 billion as of August 2026, which is a number that deserves a moment of context. That’s more than the annual GDP of a mid-sized European economy, processed entirely through smart contracts with no loan officers, no credit checks, and no business hours.
Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, has become one of the more active chains for DeFi activity since its launch. Its integration with Circle’s native USDC issuance gives it a structural advantage for stablecoin-denominated protocols.
The 89 to 90 percent utilization rate on the Base V3 market also suggests that new deposit inflows from the mobile app could be absorbed quickly. High utilization means borrowers are already competing for available liquidity. Fresh capital flowing in from mobile users gets put to work almost immediately, which sustains yields and keeps the flywheel moving.
What the Base USDC feature does, practically speaking, is give the app its most important currency pairing at launch. USDC is the stablecoin most retail users already hold, and Base is the chain most closely associated with Coinbase’s retail-facing products.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
weETH na Aave V3 překročil 4 miliardy USD v depozitech a stal se druhým největším aktivem protokolu, hned za ETH. Za posledních 30 dní vzrostly depozity o zhruba 10,9 %.
Ether.fi’s wrapped liquid restaking token, weETH, has crossed $4 billion in deposits on Aave V3’s Ethereum market. That makes it the second-largest asset by deposit volume on the biggest lending protocol in DeFi, sitting ahead of stablecoins and wrapped Bitcoin.
The numbers behind the milestone Over the past 30 days alone, weETH deposits grew by roughly 129,800 weETH, translating to more than $350 million in new supplied value. That’s a 10.9% increase in balance in a single month.
By early 2026, weETH’s total deposits on Aave were estimated at around $4.47 billion, placing it firmly in the number-two slot across the entire protocol. The only asset with a larger deposit base is native ETH itself.
ETH-linked assets now make up approximately 36% of Aave V3’s total value locked. weETH is a major driver of that concentration, functioning as a core collateral option for borrowers who want exposure to restaking yields while simultaneously leveraging their position in Aave’s lending markets.
Users deposit ETH into Ether.fi to earn restaking rewards, receive weETH as a receipt, then deposit that weETH into Aave to borrow against it.
Why liquid restaking tokens dominate Aave collateral The rise of weETH on Aave is the product of deliberate governance decisions by the Aave DAO to integrate liquid restaking tokens into its collateral framework. Aave’s community has voted to onboard weETH across multiple chains, including Arbitrum, Base, and Scroll, extending the token’s usability well beyond Ethereum mainnet.
That multichain expansion means the $4 billion figure on Ethereum alone understates weETH’s total footprint across the Aave ecosystem. Depositors across various L2 deployments can earn points from both Ether.fi and the respective layer 2 networks, creating a multi-layered reward structure that makes weETH deposits more attractive than plain ETH in many cases.
What Ether.fi’s growth means for DeFi lending weETH’s dominance on Aave is significant because Aave sets the standard for the sector. When a new collateral type becomes the second-largest asset on Aave, other lending protocols tend to follow suit.
Other liquid restaking protocols, including Renzo’s ezETH and Kelp’s rsETH, are vying for similar integrations across DeFi. weETH’s first-mover advantage on Aave, combined with its multichain deployment across Arbitrum, Base, and Scroll, has given it a structural position that competing tokens have yet to match.
For Aave, weETH deposits boost the protocol’s TVL numbers and generate borrowing demand, which in turn produces fee revenue for the DAO. The 36% share of TVL coming from ETH-linked assets indicates Aave’s growth is increasingly tied to the health and adoption of the restaking sector.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aave předkládá návrh na Custodied Collateral Lending pro instituce, které by mohly půjčovat stablecoiny proti aktivům drženým v úschově u Anchorage. Systém má běžet na Aave V4 v odděleném Liquidity Hubu.
Aave has submitted a governance proposal to introduce Custodied Collateral Lending built on Aave V4, letting institutions borrow stablecoins using assets held in custody at Anchorage. Announced in an official post on X, the design keeps the underlying collateral in Anchorage’s custody for the full loan term, while the custodian manages collateral, records balances and loan lifecycle events, and handles over-the-counter sales in the event of liquidation.
How Custodied Collateral Lending Works The system uses Chainlink CustodySync to sync custodied balances on-chain in the form of non-transferable receipt tokens, while Chainlink Price Feeds provide consistent pricing data to Aave and the custodian to keep loan-to-value ratios synchronized. Borrowed stablecoins can be delivered directly to the borrower’s address in a single transaction, streamlining the flow for institutional users. Receipt tokens let participants track exposure without moving the underlying assets, a structure aimed at satisfying the segregation and audit requirements that regulated institutions demand.
A Standalone Liquidity Hub The new facility would operate within a standalone Liquidity Hub on Aave V4, isolated from the protocol’s existing markets. That separation is intended to contain risk from the institutional product while letting it tap the same underlying infrastructure. Aave has been expanding its institutional footprint, joining a broader push to bring custodial crypto lending to institutions alongside moves such as Deutsche Bank’s entry into digital asset custody.
The proposal is part of Aave’s push to make decentralized lending attractive to banks, funds and fintechs, a segment that has largely stayed away from permissionless protocols because of custody and compliance concerns. Aave V4, the protocol’s next major architecture, is designed with modular liquidity hubs that let different lending products operate side by side while managing their own risk parameters.
What It Means for DeFi The proposal reflects a maturing DeFi sector seeking to serve regulated institutions rather than retail users alone. By pairing Aave’s lending rails with Anchorage’s custody and Chainlink’s data infrastructure, the product targets the trust and compliance requirements that have kept many institutional players on the sidelines of decentralized lending. If approved, the facility would mark another step in the convergence of decentralized finance and traditional custody, two rails that have historically operated in separate worlds.
AUTHOR
Tokoni Uti is a Lagos-based writer with several years of experience. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, the Los Angeles Free Press and the San Diego Free press among others. She is a graduate of Bowen University.
AAVE, the native token of decentralized lending protocol Aave, is showing early signs of recovery after a sustained decline. Crypto analysts have identified the $121–$122 region as a critical support area for AAVE, with the token recently retesting a key resistance between $136 and $145. A confirmed break above $145 could open the path toward a target zone between $180 and $190.
AAVE price action and resistance levelsTechnical analysis from Crypto With Gopal highlighted that AAVE has reclaimed the $121–$122 support level and is now moving toward what appears to be an important resistance region. The daily chart indicates that AAVE was trading near $136.50, approaching a significant test at the $145 mark. This resistance is viewed as pivotal—if AAVE can close decisively above $145, the bullish momentum could extend to the $180–$190 area.
If the token fails to break this range, analysts warned that AAVE could remain trapped in its existing sideways trading channel. The $121.80 mark is being closely watched as the main downside support. A sustained move below this level would undermine the recovery setup and possibly weaken the short-term bullish outlook.
Looking further ahead, $300 is seen as the next major resistance level after the $180–$190 range. For now, the $145 region remains the critical technical zone for determining AAVE’s next move.
A move above $145 is seen as essential to confirm AAVE’s recovery, while holding $121 as support is needed to maintain the bullish structure identified by analyst Crypto With Gopal.
Key LevelTypeSignificance$121–$122SupportMain area to hold for bullish structure$136–$145ResistanceCritical zone for breakout confirmation$180–$190TargetNext bullish target if $145 is broken$300ResistanceMajor resistance beyond $190Protocol growth and Aave V4 deploymentThe recent strength in the AAVE price coincides with heightened activity on the Aave V4 protocol upgrade. Aave V4, which is the latest version of the lending protocol, surpassed $1 billion in deposits on September 16, marking a new all-time high for the platform.
Governance data indicated that deposit balances reached $708.6 million across six hubs as of September 16, showing a 23% increase over the previous period. The Ethereum Core hub remained the largest contributor, but the recently launched Arc hub also brought in substantial USDC deposits.
Some reserve assets are now near their cap limits, prompting suggestions from within the community to raise these caps to allow further growth.
Aave Labs had previously announced in its August developer update that V4 exceeded $800 million in deposits and set a record for the number of active loans—demonstrating that expansion was ongoing ahead of the latest milestone.
The fundamental backdrop for AAVE has improved as protocol activity grows, but analysts caution that stronger fundamentals may not directly translate into immediate price gains for the token. The price response will likely depend on liquidity in the broader crypto market and technical triggers around the key resistance and support levels.
Aave launched its V4 version on the Avalanche network in July with a Hub and Spoke design, which combines a central liquidity hub with multiple specialized markets. This structure aims to maximize capital efficiency and expand the protocol’s ability to service various assets and user needs.
Mini dictionary: Aave is a decentralized, non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows users to lend, borrow, and earn interest on cryptocurrencies. The V4 upgrade introduces a modular architecture with enhanced efficiency, featuring a hub for central liquidity and flexible spokes for specialized markets.
Outlook for AAVE tradersTraders are now watching two central factors: the price reaction at the $145 resistance and the continuation of protocol growth on V4. A firm move above $145 may strengthen upward momentum and bring the $180–$190 target into play. On the other hand, failure to clear this resistance could refocus attention on the primary support between $121 and $122.
The relationship between expanding protocol adoption and AAVE price performance remains uncertain, as market conditions and liquidity are likely to play a major role.
The current setup gives traders clear reference points; a decisive breakout above $145 would reinforce the recovery thesis, while defending $121 support remains crucial for a sustained bullish outlook.
Aave’s new lending market on the Arc network has attracted almost $125 million in USDC. However, borrowers have taken out less than $600,000, leaving nearly all that money unused.
That imbalance shows that putting money into a fresh market is not creating an actual lending business. The test for Aave is to see if demand from the borrowers can catch up.
USDC deposits rise rapidly on Aave V4 Aavescan data from September 18 shows around $124.8 million in USDC supplied by users to Aave V4’s Arc market.
A sharp increase from the $75.8 million one day earlier and the $24.5 million in excess reserves on September 16. That means roughly a 65 per cent jump in a day and more than a fivefold increase since the market began attracting excess liquidity in recent times.
Earlier reports published on 17 September placed deposits at roughly $76 million, with almost no borrowing. Those figures are stale now, but the broader problem they highlighted remains.
The most recent reading shows the rise being even heavier, having risen to around $568,300. This increase from the reading when borrowing reached as low as some $73,400 on the midnight of September 18 suggests there may be some sign of a demand appearing now.
Source: Aavescan However, despite this, borrowers are still only utilizing 0.46% of the available USDC; more or less 99.5% remains untouched.
Why unused deposits matter Aave connects people who want to lend their crypto with those who want to borrow it. Depositors generally earn interest from the fees paid by borrowers.
When borrowing demand is weak, there is little interest to distribute. The Arc market currently displays a supply return of 0.00%, while its borrowing rate is around 0.02%.
Perhaps, all in all, the $125 million deposit is not as remarkable as first glance might suggest. The cash is there, yet it is not generating real lending or returns for suppliers in either case.
Still, the market is only in its earliest days. Lending markets need to have money supplied for borrowers to become confident in using them. The surge in deposits might therefore sow the seeds for future market activity, not an evidence of a lasting problem.
For now, the pace of borrowing, not the amount deposited, will be the clearest measure of whether Aave’s expansion onto Arc is gaining practical adoption.
Final Summary USDC deposits increased to roughly $124.8m, and borrowing remained below $600k. Utilization is just 0.46%, providing depositors with an effectively 0% interest return.
Aave na Monad za 46 dní vybudoval svůj třetí největší trh podle tržeb a získal přes 79 000 USD na protokolových příjmech. Trh držel TVL ve výši 321 mil. USD a byl pátý z 21 nasazení Aave podle TVL.
Aave deployed on Monad on July 2, 2026, with 12 markets live at launch. At the 46-day mark, it held $321m, ranking fifth of 21 Aave deployments by TVL and third by weekly fees. It also generated the second-highest weekly fees of any protocol on Monad. At that point, the market held 94% of the syrupUSDC supplied to Aave protocol-wide, and US savers depositing by bank transfer had put $3m into the market inside a day. All of this occurred during a year in which industry-wide DeFi TVL had fallen 39%.
Unless otherwise noted, market data reflects conditions at the 46-day mark or activity during the first 46 days following Aave's deployment on Monad.
The deployment problem2026 has been a year of capital leaving DeFi across the board. Industry-wide total value locked fell from roughly $115B in January to around $70B, declining every month. Capital that stayed onchain became more selective, including moving toward venues where the yield came from borrowers rather than emissions.
Those conditions make it significantly more challenging to launch a new lending market. Most lending deployments on young chains attract supply or borrow demand first and hope the other side follows. Aave did not have to.
When Aave deployed, Monad was seven months into mainnet with roughly $450m in DeFi TVL, deep USDC and USDT0 circulation, and yield-bearing dollars including Maple's syrupUSDC already onchain. Supply, as well as the assets worth borrowing against, were both in place before the market opened.
Low-friction deploymentFull EVM bytecode equivalence meant Aave's existing codebase could be deployed without changes. No contract rewrites or bespoke integration work was required. Chainlink feeds and cross-chain governance messaging were already live, giving Aave the price data and governance infrastructure needed to launch without building bespoke supporting systems.
Parity reduces the engineering barriers to deployment and leaves the decision to whether the assets, liquidity, demand, and complementary protocols needed for a productive market are already in place. On Monad, they were.
Rather than starting with a smaller initial market and expanding it over time, as is common for new markets, Aave went live with all 12 assets on day one, with six borrowable immediately. Yield-bearing and LST assets were supply-only in the first configuration. Risk providers published pre-listing assessments for syrupUSDC and sUSDe before launch, which is why 12 markets could open at once rather than being staged over a quarter.
Monad was also the first Aave market to launch with Chainlink Smart Value Recapture enabled from day one, routing part of liquidation value back to the protocol instead of leaking it to searchers.
Beyond liquidation economics, network performance affects how quickly lending markets can respond as conditions change. Liquidations finalize inside Monad's finality window, while composability with other Monad protocols avoids the additional latency of cross-chain messaging.
A July 23 upgrade narrowed that window further, cutting Monad's block times from 400ms to 300ms and finality from 800ms to 600ms. For a lending market, that speed is critical because the interval between an oracle update and a settled liquidation is the window in which bad debt can form.
The market became productive quicklyAt the 46-day mark, Aave's Monad market ranked fifth of Aave's 21 deployments by TVL and third by weekly fees. Fees outrunning size showed that capital was being borrowed rather than parked. $318m was drawn against $659m supplied, with $750k+ in cumulative fees since launch.
That performance came in a month when Aave was tightening its own portfolio. On July 29, four weeks after Aave's Monad launch, risk provider LlamaRisk filed a proposal under the Aave Risk Framework to wind down deployments generating less than $5,000 in quarterly protocol revenue, on the reasoning that maintaining an oracle, monitoring and a reliable liquidation path costs more than those markets return.
Monad's deployment produced over $79,000 in protocol revenue in its first 46 days and was running above $24,000 a week. Monad had already generated more than fifteen times the quarterly revenue threshold Aave's framework used to identify deployments for wind-down.
Why the market workedComposability is usually described as a count of protocols, but it's better understood as a count of uses per dollar.
A yield-bearing stablecoin on a chain with no money market does exactly one thing: it earns its native yield. The moment a lending venue accepts it as collateral, the same token, unchanged, becomes a borrowing base. Nothing was minted and no new capital arrived, but a dollar that had one use now has two.
syrupUSDC demonstrates this. At the 46-day mark, Maple's yield token circulated on six chains, with $206m of its $1.3b supply on Monad, second only to Ethereum and more than double the next largest chain's share. The concentration was sharper inside Aave; of the $217m of syrupUSDC supplied to Aave protocol-wide, over $204m was on Monad.
At that point, Aave's syrupUSDC market was, in practice, a Monad market. Nobody minted new syrupUSDC to make that happen. A venue opened that would lend against it, and the supply moved toward a market where it could also be used as collateral.
The carry trade at the center of this market needs yield-bearing dollars, a deep money market, liquid stablecoins to borrow, fixed-income markets to term it out through products like Pendle PTs, and risk infrastructure to price all of it, simultaneously, on one chain.
The pattern repeats as new sources of capital connect to the same market. Nook is a US savings app built by the team that ran Coinbase's DeFi lending pilot, with over $1B in transactions processed and yield sourced from borrower interest on vetted lending protocols. When it opened access to Aave's USDC market on Monad, customers put in more than $3m inside 24 hours, roughly $2m of it in the first few hours. Nook attracted 476 unique depositors, with Monad accounting for more than 13% of its active depositor base at the time.
84% of Nook's deposits arrived by ACH or wire, straight from a bank account. Most of those depositors would not describe themselves as crypto users, and millions of dollars reached an onchain lending market without any of them touching a bridge, exchange, or seed phrase.
MetaMask's Money Account reaches the same economy from the crypto-native side. It launched on Monad on June 30, 2026 with a self-custodial mUSD balance earning up to 4% variable APY, spendable through a Mastercard-accepted card, with the yield sourced from DeFi lending rather than from the issuer.
Card spending pulls directly from the underlying balance, so the balance can continue generating yield until it is spent. Deposits route through Veda vaults with risk curation by Steakhouse Financial, with Aave among the live allocations at the 46-day mark. One balance that spends is also a balance that lends.
Capital that arrives and leaves is rented. Capital that becomes collateral, generates borrow demand, and returns as a savings balance funded by bank transfer turns a collection of assets and applications into an economy.
At the 46-day mark, stablecoin supply on Monad eclipsed $706m, up more than 8% over the prior week. The full path from a US bank account to a money market is wired end to end, which is the part that takes the longest to build.
The direction of travel held against the industry. By the 46-day mark, Monad had posted the largest one-month TVL gain of any of the ten largest chains, in a week when seven of those ten shrank. Monad DeFi TVL stood at $934m across 168 protocols, roughly double where it stood when Aave deployed.
What this means if you're buildingThe market's performance reflects the pieces a DeFi deployment needs to become productive. A deployment does not have to create every side of its market from scratch. Existing assets become collateral, collateral creates borrow demand, and consumer and distribution products can route additional capital back into the same underlying markets.
Neutrality matters, too. Settlement layers are sticky, and independently governed protocols need infrastructure they can build on without depending on a competing application operator. On neutral infrastructure, Aave can retain its own governance while other products route users and capital into its markets, without either side controlling the other. Six weeks after Aave launched on Monad, MetaMask, a wallet with millions of users, was already routing deposits into the same market.
Anything that runs on Ethereum runs on Monad unchanged. The collateral and credit layer is already deep enough to build against at size, and the core market data cited here is publicly queryable, including on DefiLlama, rather than taken on faith.
A protocol deploying on Monad can connect into an economy that is compounding with an existing ecosystem of assets, liquidity and applications rather than bootstrapping each component from scratch.
TakeawayIn a year when the DeFi sector lost 39% of its capital, Aave built its third-largest fee-generating market on Monad in six weeks, while fixed-income and consumer products connected additional uses and sources of capital to the same underlying economy.
Aave navrhuje umožnit institucím půjčovat si stablecoiny proti kolaterálu drženému u regulovaného správce Anchorage, aniž by BTC opustil úschovu. Cílí tak na dříve nedostupná institucionální aktiva v DeFi.
Aave is betting on a new plan to attract more institutions into the DeFi space. The proposal, called custodied collateral lending, seeks to allow institutions to borrow stablecoins on Aave.
The collateral backing the loan will be held by a regulated custodian, in this case, Anchorage. According to Aave, the plan would reach what it describes as the “currently unreachable collateral asset.”
The integration onboards a class of collateral that is currently unreachable for Aave: assets held with a regulated custodian by institutional borrowers who cannot or will not self-custody.
To achieve this, Aave wants to solve key bottlenecks.
Unpacking Aave’s custodied collateral lending The lending protocol noted that while institutions wish to use their assets held at a regulated custodian for on-chain lending and collateral, it’s currently impossible to do so. The friction is due to a lack of communication between institutional custody and on-chain lending.
Currently, regulated institutional custody, such as Anchorage, is an independent system from on-chain lending firms like Morpho or Aave. To bridge this, Aave wants institutional players who want to stay within the regulated system to move assets to Anchorage.
Afterwards, the custodied assets will be represented on-chain via Chainlink’s CustodySync and Custodied Collateral Tokens (CoCTs). Think of it as receipts of the assets held by Anchorage. This is what Aave will use to support its lending activity for the institutions.
In a nutshell, the actual BTC does not exit Anchorage. The CoCTs are deposited on Aave to borrow stablecoins (USDC). After the final repayment, which comes with interest, the CoCTs are burnt, and the BTC is unlocked from Anchorage and returned to the institutional player (e.g., a hedge fund).
At the moment, the best way to do that is to change the assets to alternatives like wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) before seeking leverage and DeFi lending opportunities. But this comes with smart contract risk and other related risks (compliance, security, etc.).
Will it boost Aave’s growth? For his part, Aave founder Stani Kulechov called the proposal “first-of-its-kind.”
A first-of-its-kind proposal to enable institutions to borrow stablecoins on Aave V4 against collateral held with a qualified custodian, accessing liquidity directly from Aave V4 markets.
Put differently, this could be a massive unlock for institutional capital. So far, Aave has a total value locked (TVL) of $19B. This was a rebound from $12.5B in June, signalling a 52% recovery and appetite for on-chain loans in Q3.
Source: DeFiLlama If the proposal gets enough backing and positive sentiment, it will move into Snapshot after months of voting. If voted and approved, the final step will be execution of the proposal.
Whether this will force other lending players such as Morpho and Kamino to adapt remains to be seen.
Final Summary Aave wants to unlock institutional assets stuck in regulated custodians into DeFi lending with its latest proposal Aave traction grew 52% in Q3 to $19B, and the latest plan could unlock more institutional capital
Aave spouští na síti Avalanche specializovaný RWA lending hub pro instituce, které si mohou půjčovat stablecoiny proti tokenizovaným aktivům bez nutnosti likvidace pozic. Jako hlavní stablecoin používá $USAT.
Aave Brings Institutional RWA Lending to Avalanche@Aave is deploying a dedicated Real-World Asset (RWA) lending hub on @Avax, giving institutions a purpose-built market where they can borrow stablecoins against tokenized assets without having to liquidate their underlying positions. The move marks a significant step in bridging regulated, real-world finance with on-chain credit markets.
The deployment builds on Aave V4, which launched on Avalanche on July 15, 2026 as the first expansion of the protocol's new Hub and Spoke architecture beyond Ethereum. The rollout is backed by up to $15 million in milestone-based incentives from the Avalanche Foundation, tied to growth targets including total value locked and borrowing volumes. Aave V4 has already raised over $20 million in deposits on Avalanche in its first two months, underscoring the network's appetite for the protocol.
Tether's $USAT Steps Into DeFiOne of the more notable aspects of the RWA hub is its choice of dollar liquidity. Tether's $USAT serves as the project's primary stablecoin, marking one of the asset's earliest uses inside a decentralized lending venue. $USAT launched in January 2026 as a federally regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and developed in partnership with Tether, built specifically to operate within the US GENIUS Act framework. Unlike USDT, which continues to circulate globally, $USAT is designed for US institutional and regulated-DeFi use cases, with Cantor Fitzgerald serving as its designated reserve custodian.
The combination of Aave's lending infrastructure and $USAT's compliance profile positions the RWA hub as a credible entry point for institutions that need on-chain credit without sacrificing regulatory clarity. Avalanche, which has emerged as a leading network for tokenized real-world assets, provides the underlying settlement layer. The hub is expected to support collateral types including tokenized government bonds, money market funds, and private credit instruments.
Together, the launch signals a broader shift in DeFi strategy: rather than competing for retail liquidity, leading protocols are increasingly building dedicated infrastructure aimed squarely at institutional capital.
Sources:
crypto.news: Aave pushes beyond Ethereum with Avalanche RWA lending expansion
Tether.io: Official USAT launch announcement
LiveBitcoinNews: Aave V4 goes live on Avalanche
Circle spustila veřejný mainnet Arc, kde se poplatky platí v USDC a bloky vytváří povolený okruh 11 institucí včetně BlackRock, DTCC a Visa, plus Circle. Na startu je přes 100 aplikací.
The Layer 1 charges gas in USDC and runs proof-of-authority across a permissioned set of 11 institutions plus Circle. More than 100 applications are live at launch, with Aave, Morpho and Uniswap anchoring DeFi. Circle minted 10 billion ARC tokens this week without committing to a public launch.
Circle opened the public mainnet of Arc on Wednesday, a Layer 1 blockchain where transaction fees are paid in USDC and blocks are produced by a fixed set of regulated financial institutions rather than an open validator market.
The chain puts block production in the hands of the firms that clear securities and run card rails. BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay make up the founding validator cohort alongside Circle, which named them on Aug. 5. Global Payments completed its $24.25 billion acquisition of Worldpay in January.
Circle counts more than 100 applications and more than 100 institutional and ecosystem builders live on day one. Its testnet, which opened in October 2025, processed more than 700 million transactions, and the developer program has more than 75,000 Arc House members.
"Arc is the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself, and it is the embodiment of the premise we have operated on for thirteen years: money should work the way the internet works," Jeremy Allaire, Circle's co-founder, chairman and chief executive, said in the announcement.
Gas In DollarsFees on Arc are denominated in USDC with 18 decimals, and the network has no volatile gas token. Arc's fee documentation sets a base fee target of about $0.01 per transaction and caps the base fee at 20,000 Gwei, using EIP-1559 with exponentially weighted moving-average smoothing so traffic spikes move fees less than they do on Ethereum. Arc's landing page put the average weekly transaction cost at $0.045.
Consensus is proof-of-authority over the permissioned set, running Tendermint BFT through Circle's Malachite implementation. Arc's system overview states deterministic finality in under one second with no reorganization risk, and benchmarks finality below 350 milliseconds and throughput above 3,000 transactions per second with 20 validators. Blocks target 30 million gas at a half-second block time. The chain is fully EVM-compatible, so existing Solidity contracts and tooling work at launch.
Validation is restricted but usage is not. Arc's deployment documentation says developers "can deploy contracts and send transactions without approval," while "a fixed group of known, vetted institutions produce and validate blocks." That page puts the validator count at approximately 20 SOC 2-certified operators across multiple regions. Circle's release names 11 institutions and itself, and says the cohort comes online in phases.
Aave And Morpho Anchor CreditAave and Morpho supply Arc's lending markets at launch. Aave is deploying a V4 market on the chain, and Bitwise, Cumberland, Dialectic, Galaxy, Gauntlet, Keyrock and Steakhouse Financial are supporting it through curated vault strategies, risk oversight and USDC and EURC supply.
"We're doubling down on the Circle ecosystem with a new Aave V4 market on Arc, bringing DeFi's most trusted credit infrastructure to a network purpose-built to bring real-world finance onchain," said Stani Kulechov, founder and chief executive of Aave Labs.
"Arc brings together the speed, stablecoin-native infrastructure, and institutional participation needed to expand onchain credit to a much broader market," said Merlin Egalite, co-founder of Morpho.
Trading runs through Aero Lite, fomo and Uniswap. The wider trading list runs to 1inch, Bankr, Dinari, Doppler, edgeX, Extended, Hibachi, LI.FI, o1.exchange, pools.trade, Pump.fun and Robinhood. Pools, the Uniswap Labs launchpad, said on Monday it had partnered with Arc as a day-one launchpad, and appears on Circle's list as pools.trade.
Binance, Bitso, Bitvavo, Bybit, Gate, Kraken, KuCoin, MEXC, OKX, OSL, Upbit and Wenia provide exchange access. Anchorage, BitGo, Ceffu, Copper, Fireblocks and Zodia Custody provide custody. BNY, BTG Pactual, HSBC, Lead Bank, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered and State Street are the banks Circle names.
The Token Circle MintedCircle completed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens in the United States this week, and says it is the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1. Network fees stay payable in USDC. The company describes the mint as a technical milestone rather than a commitment to launch ARC publicly, and says the network is exploring a shift from proof-of-authority to proof-of-stake in 2027.
Allaire first said Circle was studying a token on the company's fourth-quarter earnings call in February, and gave no launch timeline then. The supply figure and the consensus transition were both set out in the ARC whitepaper Circle published in May. That document allocates 60% of the 10 billion tokens to ecosystem uses including token sales, developer grants and network growth programs, 25% to Circle, and 15% to a long-term reserve. It sets early-phase inflation at roughly 2% to 3% a year on a decaying schedule, and gives holders votes on fees, inflation and burn logic while Circle retains control of protocol development, compliance and validator membership.
Circle has already sold ARC. The company raised $222 million in a presale at a $3 billion fully diluted valuation in May, with a16z crypto putting in $75 million. BlackRock, Apollo Funds, ICE, ARK Invest, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered Ventures, General Catalyst, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, Bullish and Marshall Wace also bought. Several of those buyers are now founding validators or named partners. Circle has not disclosed what share of supply the presale covered or its vesting terms.
Agents As Economic ActorsCircle is positioning Arc as the settlement layer for AI agents. It says USDC accounts for 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume and that most agent-to-agent payments settling over the x402 standard have settled in USDC since Circle Agent Stack launched in May. Circle has not published the methodology behind the 98.8% figure.
Agent Stack provides policy-controlled Agent Wallets, Nanopayments through Circle Gateway, and what Circle calls an emerging Agent Marketplace. The Defiant reported when Circle launched Nanopayments across 11 blockchains, which move USDC in amounts as small as $0.000001. Arc Portal lets users fund agent wallets and set spend limits. A component Circle calls AgentVM, which would let agents process sensitive data while Arc records a verifiable log of results, is still in design.
Two developer tools ship with mainnet. Arc Studio is an onchain coding agent that generates contracts, application logic and deployment-ready code. Arc App Kits is an SDK covering payments, swaps, onramps and yield, with yield routed through Morpho.
Twenty-Two Currencies On StableFXCircle StableFX handles cross-currency settlement on Arc. Circle lists 22 stablecoins as active or onboarding, including USDC, EURC, Brazil's BRLA, Japan's JPYC, Mexico's MXNB and wrapped versions of the Argentine peso, Chilean peso, Colombian peso and Peruvian sol. Circle Payments Network is integrated natively into the chain.
Tradeable assets at launch include Circle's USYC money market fund, BlackRock's BUIDL treasury fund tokenized by Securitize, private credit funds and cirBTC, Circle's wrapped bitcoin. Bitwise, Dinari, Janus Henderson, New York Life Investment Management with Centrifuge, Maple, Matrixdock, ProShares and xStocks by Payward are bringing tokenized products to the chain.
Circle says opt-in privacy, using confidential transactions and balances with view keys, is in development for network-wide release rather than live today. Post-quantum signatures are supported now.
CRCL Falls 11% Into LaunchCircle stock closed at $86.30 on Tuesday, down 11.41% on the day, for a market value of $21.91 billion, Stock Analysis data shows. The shares have traded between $49.90 and $159.47 over the past year. Crypto equities fell on Tuesday after the Senate voted 49-50 against taking up the CLARITY Act, short of the 60 votes cloture needed. Republicans had posted what they called the bill's final text the day before.
USDC had a market value of $73.73 billion on $19.9 billion of 24-hour volume, per CoinGecko. Circle's release puts circulation above $74 billion.
Arc's permissioned design has drawn objections since Circle first described the chain. In the open-versus-permissioned debate The Defiant covered on Aug. 12, Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, said "this isn't an L1 and it's offensive to call it such," arguing that "there are never economic incentives to be a faithful validator, and that's why they have to make it a private consortium." Mitchell DiRaimondo, founder of Steelwave Digital, said the design "isn't DeFi, and that's the point." He added: "Bold? Yes. Terrible? Only if you confuse it with DeFi infrastructure."
Circle is streaming a launch event at 2 p.m. ET and has opened Arc Portal to new users.
Market data as of the Sept. 15 U.S. close and 21:00 UTC on Sept. 15.
Aave v srpnu zvýšil průměrný TVL o 13,7 % na 27,4 miliardy USD a objem aktivních úvěrů na 11,7 miliardy USD. Podíl na sledovaném on-chain lendingu vzrostl na 47,8 %.
Aave has recorded $27.4 billion in average total value locked during August as active loans climbed to $11.7 billion and its share of tracked on-chain lending reached 47.8%.
Summary
Aave’s August TVL rose 13.7% monthly to $27.4 billion, while active loans reached $11.7 billion. Aave held 47.8% of tracked lending loans, extending its market-share recovery for a second month. V4 TVL averaged $442.3 million, rising 53.4%, while active loans increased 62.9% during August overall. GHO market capitalization reached $661.6 million, its fourteenth consecutive monthly increase and record average level. Monthly active users fell 3.8% to 68,900, extending declines for a fourth consecutive month overall. Token Terminal’sAugust 2026 Aave report showed TVL rising 13.7% from July, while active loans increased 12.9%. Both metrics advanced for a second straight month and reached their highest monthly averages since April. The figures remain well below year-earlier levels, with TVL down 57.6% and active loans down 56.9% year over year.
The same report put August fees at $33.9 million, up 15.2% month over month, while DAO revenue rose 9.2% to $4.9 million. Interest produced $33.3 million, or 98.2% of fees, as outstanding borrowing increased across Aave markets.
Aave lending activity recovered faster than the tracked market Aave’s $11.7 billion active-loan balance represented 47.8% of the lending sector tracked by Token Terminal. Its market share increased 1.2 percentage points from July after reaching 45.5% in June. The tracked sector’s loan book expanded from $22.2 billion to $24.4 billion during August, with Aave growing 12.9% against 7.5% for the rest of the group.
Ethereum remained Aave’s main capital base, accounting for $22.9 billion, or 83.5%, of average August TVL. Ethereum active loans reached $9.6 billion, equal to 82.4% of the protocol total. Plasma ranked second by borrowing volume at $797.6 million, followed by Base at $328.2 million and Arbitrum at $316.6 million.
Borrowing was concentrated in WETH and stablecoins. Token Terminal put WETH loans at $4.1 billion, or 35.3% of outstanding debt. USDT carried $2.7 billion and USDC $2.6 billion, while USDe and USDT0 contributed $732.6 million and $702.8 million, respectively.
The rise in loans fed directly into protocol income. USDC generated $9.6 million of August fees, USDT produced $9.4 million and WETH contributed $7.9 million. The DAO retained $4.9 million in total revenue, with WETH markets accounting for $1.3 million.
Aave V4 grew faster as new lending routes went live Aave V4 recorded average TVL of $442.3 million in August, up 53.4% from July. Average active loans increased faster, climbing 62.9% to $154.9 million. Token Terminal’s core V4 figures cover Ethereum and Avalanche and exclude the dedicated Ether.fi Cash instance on OP Mainnet.
Aave Labs reported a different point-in-time measure in its August development update, saying V4 deposits surpassed $800 million during the month and active loans reached a record. The figures are not directly comparable with Token Terminal’s $442.3 million monthly-average TVL because the measurement dates and included deployments differ.
By month-end, Token Terminal measured $567.4 million in deposits across the V4 deployments covered by its core series. USDG and weETH each held around $90 million, followed by WETH at $77.2 million, WBTC at $50.9 million and wstETH at $44.3 million.
Growth accelerated after Ether.fi moved its Cash borrowing backend to a dedicated Aave V4 instance on Optimism. Deposits on that separate instance increased from $17.5 million on Aug. 14 to $237.1 million by month-end, according to Token Terminal.
Ether.fi’s updated financial app uses an Aave market on Optimism to support borrowing against customers’ portfolios. The integration lets eligible users obtain stablecoin loans against supported collateral while retaining their underlying assets.
V4’s expansion continued beyond Optimism. Crypto.news reported Aave V4’s first deployment outside Ethereum on Avalanche in July, while a later report showed V4 deposits crossing $806 million during August.
Aave Labs said it is continuing work to support Coinbase Tokenized Stocks through a planned V4 deployment on Base. Crypto.news reported the launch of Coinbase’s tokenized stocks on Base on Aug. 24, covering Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet products for eligible non-U.S. investors.
Horizon and GHO extended Aave’s growth beyond V3 lending Aave Horizon, the protocol’s market for loans backed by tokenized real-world assets, averaged $371.6 million in TVL during August. The figure rose 6.1% from July and 1,456.2% from its first month a year earlier. Average Horizon active loans stood at $115.3 million.
RLUSD was the largest supplied asset on Horizon at $161.7 million, while USTB accounted for $66.3 million and GHO $59.9 million. RLUSD dominated borrowing with $84.5 million in active debt, followed by $27.8 million in GHO.
The market’s collateral pipeline remains active in September. A Securitize proposal seeks to add HINC, a tokenized high-yield fund sub-advised by Neuberger Berman, as supply-only Horizon collateral with USDC, GHO and RLUSD available for borrowing. A separate Midas and Wellington-linked mWIN proposal remains in Aave governance.
Securitize’s HINC launch with Neuberger Berman, describing a portfolio centered on high-yield bonds alongside CLOs and leveraged loans.
GHO reached an average market capitalization of $661.6 million in August, rising 13.1% monthly and 154.7% from a year earlier. Token Terminal said the stablecoin has now grown for 14 consecutive months.
GHO governance has since moved borrowing and savings rates higher. TokenLogic’s August GHO rate update raises the Ethereum Core borrowing rate from 3.75% to 4.25% in two stages and lifts the Aave Savings Rate paid to sGHO from 4.25% to 4.50%. The proposal estimated the extra savings cost at roughly $397,000 annually based on 158.6 million GHO then deposited in sGHO.
User activity fell while Aave expanded distribution Capital growth did not extend to wallet activity. Token Terminal recorded 68,900 monthly active users in August, down 3.8% from July and 35% from a year earlier. User activity fell for a fourth consecutive month to its lowest monthly average since February 2024.
Base had the largest share of users at 21,200, narrowly ahead of Ethereum at 21,000. Ethereum still held more than four-fifths of Aave’s capital, leaving the protocol’s user distribution much less concentrated than its TVL.
Aave has been expanding its consumer distribution while wallet counts decline. Aave App opened early access on iOS on Aug. 26 through its Ghost Pass referral program, with access scheduled to expand in batches. Android and web users remain on a waitlist.
Aave Labs’ September development priorities include continued work on Coinbase Tokenized Stocks, Stable Vaults, GHO and the Aave App. Its governance forum is meanwhile considering activation of V4 Risk Stewards on Ethereum and Avalanche, which would give delegated risk managers limited authority to change specified Hub, Spoke and oracle parameters within governance-set caps and cooldown periods.
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Chainlink oznámil 10 nových integrací napříč pěti službami a čtyřmi blockchainy, včetně Aave a Bottomline Pay. Rozšiřuje tak svou oracle a datovou infrastrukturu napříč ekosystémem.
Chainlink has announced 10 new integrations spanning five services and four blockchain networks, adding to a growing list of projects that rely on its oracle and data infrastructure.
Who Is Joining the Chainlink EcosystemThe oracle network's latest adoption update covers ten new integrations spanning five distinct services and four blockchain networks, with prominent platforms such as Aave and Bottomline Pay among the latest adopters. AI-focused projects are also part of the wave, including Forever Money AI, which uses artificial intelligence to optimize DeFi strategies. Other adopters in this round include World, Tempo, GMTrade, Space and Time, and WyoStable.
These integrations enable AI agents and other services to leverage real-time data, improving transaction decision-making. For DeFi users, that translates to greater precision across lending, trading, and yield generation.
A Pattern of Steady ExpansionThe latest batch fits a broader pattern of consistent growth. In 2026, Aave expanded the relationship as its V4 markets adopted Chainlink as their exclusive oracle platform, while Smart Value Recapture and Chainlink Runtime Environment added revenue and automation capabilities.
The network's reach continues to widen across the broader ecosystem. Chainlink's infrastructure has enabled more than $27 trillion in transaction value across over 70 blockchains by December 2025, while securing more than $100 billion across DeFi, with roughly 70% market share across blockchains and more than 80% on Ethereum. The fact that this latest wave of integrations spans four different blockchain networks underlines Chainlink's chain-agnostic design, which allows it to serve as a neutral data layer across a fragmented crypto landscape.
Sources:
Coinfomania: Chainlink Integrates with 10 New Services Across 4 Chains
Chainlink: Q1 2026 Quarterly Review
KuCoin: Chainlink Becomes Core Infrastructure for Aave and Major DeFi Protocols
Zakladatel Aave Stani Kulechov podpořil CLARITY Act jako klíčový krok k jasným pravidlům pro DeFi. Podle něj by mohl vytvořit trvalý regulační rámec podobně jako GENIUS Act pro stablecoiny.
Aave Founder Backs CLARITY Act as DeFi's Defining Moment@StaniKulechov, founder of @Aave, is throwing his weight behind the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, calling it a "big deal" and the legislation most likely to establish a durable regulatory framework for decentralized finance. Speaking publicly on the matter, Stani drew a direct comparison to the GENIUS Act, suggesting the CLARITY Act could do for DeFi what stablecoin legislation did for that corner of the market.
The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, established a regime to regulate US payment stablecoins , and set a precedent for sector-specific crypto legislation in the United States. Stani's argument is that the CLARITY Act represents the logical next chapter.
What the CLARITY Act Would Mean for DeFi The CLARITY Act is a US bill designed to establish clear rules for cryptocurrencies and digital assets, granting the CFTC oversight of digital commodity markets while the SEC continues regulating securities. For DeFi specifically, the bill resolves threshold questions about developer liability, self-custody rights, and stablecoin economics that have created compliance uncertainty for years.
If enacted, the legislation could allow banks and financial institutions to hold, lend, and borrow digital assets without seeking additional permissions, a shift that would meaningfully lower the barrier for traditional finance to participate in on-chain markets. The act also commissions a joint SEC, CFTC, and Treasury study on DeFi's size, risks, and integration with traditional markets.
The bill passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 in May 2026. However, a merged Senate text landed in late July 2026 carrying a first-of-its-kind ethics provision, with three fights still unresolved: who enforces the ethics rules, whether stablecoin rewards survive, and how far developer protections extend.
With September now viewed as the realistic window for further progress, the coming weeks could determine whether the CLARITY Act advances to the President's desk or stalls further. For Stani and the broader DeFi community, the stakes are clear: a workable statutory framework could unlock institutional capital and replace years of regulatory uncertainty with defined rules of engagement.
Sources:
CLARITY Act Explained: SEC and CFTC Crypto Rules in 2026 (Datawallet)
Stablecoin Legislation: An Overview of the GENIUS Act of 2025 (Congress.gov)
The Facts: The CLARITY Act (US Senate Banking Committee)
Aave má podle DefiLlama vklady 18,1 miliardy USD, asi o 31 % méně než před dubnovým hackem Kelp. AAVE se dnes obchoduje poblíž 124 USD, asi o 3,8 % níž.
Deposits on Aave stood at $18.1 billion as of this writing, which is approximately 31% below the $26.1 billion it held the day before April’s Kelp hack, according to DefiLlama.
The lender’s own code never failed. What failed was the collateral behind its loans, in a place those loan contracts could not check.
Deposits on Aave (TVL). Source: DefiLlamaWhat the Kelp Hack Actually BrokeOn April 18, attackers went after how Kelp DAO’s cross-chain bridge checked incoming messages, not its lending logic. Kelp is a liquid restaking protocol, and rsETH is its receipt token.
$AAVE dropped 20% today after the KelpDAO rsETH exploit.
The exploit triggered a wave of whale selling and a record spike in $ETH utilization across the lending protocol.
Th @aave team told BeInCrypto that the situation is contained to the V3 ETH market only, with V4 completely… pic.twitter.com/LvDCDHCdmN
— BeInCrypto (@beincrypto) April 19, 2026 An rsETH holder does not hold ether. They hold a claim on staked ether, and that claim crossed a bridge first. They corrupted the data feeds that bridge trusted and pushed a fake message through it. That released 116,500 rsETH worth about $292 million, close to 18% of the token’s supply, with nothing behind it.
Security firm Halborn traced the theft to a single-verifier setup and hijacked data nodes. Chainalysis linked the attackers to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. No contract was broken.
The unbacked tokens then walked into lending markets. Attackers supplied 89,567 rsETH on Aave and borrowed roughly $193 million against it.
Aave froze rsETH across 11 markets within the hour and froze WETH two days later. BeInCrypto warned Aave WETH suppliers to pull out that same evening, hours before those pools hit full utilization.
“Aave’s smart contracts were not compromised at any point during this event. All protocol logic, including supply, repayment, and liquidation mechanisms, continued to function as designed.”
Aave’s incident report put the bad debt at $123.7 million if losses were spread evenly. Isolating the bridged rsETH pushed it to $230.1 million.
What Borrowers Are TrustingRival protocols covered the hole. A coalition-funded recovery plan gathered about 69,570 ETH in pledges against a 75,081 ETH shortfall.
Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 30,765 ETH of the proceeds, and its DAO released that sum to Aave in June. A US court order sought by creditors holding judgments against North Korea still hangs over the money.
Depositors have been slower to forgive than the balance sheet. Aave held $12.5 billion at the end of June and $18.1 billion this week. AAVE trades near $124, down 3.8% on the day.
AAVE Price Performance. Source: BeInCryptoThe same structure sits elsewhere. Wrapped Bitcoin and other receipt tokens all place something between a borrower and the asset.
Three things are worth checking before posting any of them as collateral.
How many independent parties must sign off on the token’s bridge Whether the lending market is isolated or shares losses with its neighbors Whether the collateral is a claim on another claim April answered none of those questions for borrowers who lost access. It showed the cost of not asking.
Aave V4 se blíží k milníku 1 mld. USD ve vkladech a po spuštění mainnetu v březnu už překročil 900 mil. USD. Za posledních 30 dní vzrostl zhruba o 131 %.
Aave's new Hub-and-Spoke architecture is closing in on $1B in deposits.
Aave's next-gen DeFi lending architecture has crossed $900 million in deposits and is closing in on the $1 billion mark, a milestone reached less than six months after V4's mainnet debut in March.
What's the Scoop?The number: The $900M figure is Aave's own count of total assets supplied to V4. Independent trackers like DeFiLlama currently show a lower ~$399M for the instances they index, since their TVL methodology doesn't count borrowed assets and doesn't yet cover every V4 deployment.The architecture: V4 swaps V3's siloed pools for a Hub-and-Spoke design. Central Hub vaults hold and account for a chain's liquidity, while user-facing Spokes (e.g. Core, Prime, Plus, and others) draw a governed credit line from that shared pool rather than bootstrapping their own. That lets specialized markets tap the same deep liquidity while staying walled off from each other's risk.The growth curve: V4 has seen roughly 131% growth over the past 30 days alone, with active loans recently topping $250M for the first time. New markets (a dedicated EtherFi Cash instance on Optimism, and an Ethena market that launched September 7th, etc.) have driven much of the recent surge.Perspective: Even near $1B, V4 remains a small fraction of Aave's roughly $30B supplied across V3 and +20 chains. This is early traction for new infra rather than a changing of the guard, at least for now.
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It’s time to break up with your bank, and join the movement for a better world.
Aave Labs spustila MCP server, který AI agentům dává jednotný přístup k datům z Aave V3 a V4. Podporuje V3 na 21 blockchainech a V4 na Ethereum a Avalanche.
Aave Labs just made it a lot easier for AI agents to talk to its lending protocols. The team launched a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives AI applications a single, standardized endpoint to pull live data from both Aave V3 and V4, replacing the patchwork of static datasets and third-party wrappers that developers previously had to cobble together.
The server, accessible at mcp.aave.com, connects to Aave V3 deployments across 21 different blockchains and to Aave V4 on Ethereum and Avalanche. Think of it as a universal translator between AI models and Aave’s on-chain infrastructure.
What the MCP server actually does Model Context Protocol, or MCP, is a standardized way for AI applications to access external data and tools in real time. Aave’s implementation offers approximately 40 tools that cover everything from market data retrieval to transaction preparation.
Users and AI agents can check wallet positions, examine health factors (the metric that determines how close a position is to liquidation), simulate potential actions before committing capital, and prepare unsigned transactions. That last part matters: the server is non-custodial by design, meaning it can assemble a transaction for you but never holds your keys or signs anything on your behalf.
For a concrete example: an AI portfolio manager could now query a user’s Aave positions across multiple chains, identify that a health factor on one position is trending dangerously low, simulate a partial repayment to see how it would improve the ratio, and prepare the exact transaction needed to execute it. All in one flow, all from one data source.
Why this matters for DeFi’s AI race Aave’s approach is notable for its scope. Supporting V3 across 21 chains means the MCP server covers the vast majority of Aave’s deployed capital. Adding V4 on Ethereum and Avalanche signals that the team views this integration layer as forward-looking, not just a convenience feature bolted onto legacy infrastructure.
The non-custodial architecture is a deliberate design choice that addresses one of the thorniest questions in the AI-agent space: who controls the keys? By limiting the server to unsigned transactions, Aave sidesteps the trust problem entirely. An AI agent can do everything up to the point of execution, but a human (or a separate, purpose-built signing module) still has to approve the final step.
The roughly 40 tools available at launch suggest Aave is thinking about this comprehensively rather than offering a minimal viable product. Market data, position management, risk simulation, and transaction preparation cover the core workflows that any AI-powered DeFi application would need.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
LlamaRisk navrhla pro Aave V3 zvýšit limity pro USDC, GHO, wstETH a USD₮0 a zároveň snížit nevyužívané limity pro syrupUSDC, USDe a syrupUSDT. U USDe na pěti deploymentech chce zvednout základní variabilní sazbu z 4 % na 5 %.
LlamaRisk proposed reserve-cap and interest-rate changes for Aave V3 on Sept. 7, responding to utilization, liquidity and borrower data across six deployments. Its Risk Stewards update recommends raising USDC, GHO, wstETH and USD₮0 limits while reducing underused syrupUSDC, USDe and syrupUSDT supply caps.
The plan also lifts the USDe base variable borrow rate by one percentage point on Aave V3 Core, Plasma, Monad, Mantle and Avalanche. LlamaRisk said it intends to implement the package through the Risk Steward process. That language makes this a dated risk-parameter action plan, not evidence that every proposed value was already active when the post appeared.
USDC and GHO caps would expand where demand is high On Aave V3 Core, the recommended USDC supply cap rises from 2.5 billion to 3 billion, while the borrow cap moves from 2.25 billion to 2.7 billion. LlamaRisk reported supply-cap utilization of 92.4% and borrow-cap utilization of 95.7% before the change, with debt growing faster than supply over the seven days through Sept. 7.
For Monad, the proposal increases GHO’s supply cap from 40 million to 60 million and its borrow cap from 36 million to 54 million. It also raises Prime’s wstETH supply cap from 62,000 to 80,000. On X Layer, where the report said USD₮0’s borrow cap was fully used, the recommended limit rises from 48 million to 90 million. BlockchainReporter previously covered Aave’s launch on X Layer, the deployment affected by that proposed expansion.
Three supply caps would shrink after balances fell The same review cuts limits where deposited balances have moved away from earlier capacity. Monad’s syrupUSDC supply cap would fall from 240 million to 150 million, and its USDe cap from 220 million to 150 million. Plasma’s syrupUSDT supply cap would be halved from 300 million to 150 million.
LlamaRisk said these reductions still leave headroom above current supply. It estimated post-change utilization at 67.8% for syrupUSDC, 60.6% for USDe and 75.2% for syrupUSDT. The distinction matters because a lower cap limits future deposits; it does not imply that existing positions are being removed.
USDe borrowing moves toward a higher base rate Across the five USDe markets, the recommended base variable rate rises from 4% to 5%, while Slope1 falls by one percentage point. Because the optimal-utilization settings remain unchanged, LlamaRisk said the liquidity share available at those thresholds would not change. Estimated borrow-rate increases at then-current utilization ranged from 17 basis points on Avalanche to 83 basis points on Mantle.
The review also tracked the effects of earlier USDe rate increases. It said Core borrowers reduced USDe debt by 38.8 million after the base reached 4%, with 7.7 million replaced by USDC or USDT borrowing from the same accounts. Plasma borrowers reduced USDe debt by 24.7 million, while only 0.4 million was re-borrowed in other stablecoins. Those observations explain the pricing change, but they remain a point-in-time assessment rather than a forecast of future borrower behavior.
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Avalanche Deployment Gains TractionAave's V4 deployment on Avalanche ($AVAX) has reached $20 million in deposits, according to Token Terminal, roughly doubling in size over the past month. The platform currently carries about $5 million in active loans, a sign that borrowing activity is beginning to build alongside the deposit growth.
The Avalanche deployment went live on July 15, 2026, marking the first time Aave had deployed its newest protocol version outside Ethereum, where earlier versions built most of its liquidity. Avalanche was chosen as the first expansion beyond Ethereum in part because of an established track record and a fast-growing ecosystem for tokenized real-world assets such as Treasuries and corporate bonds. The rollout was also backed by ecosystem incentives: Avalanche committed up to $15 million tied to key performance indicators including total value locked, borrowing activity, and protocol revenue growth.
A Broader V4 Expansion StoryThe Avalanche figures are one piece of a wider growth picture for Aave V4. Across all chains, V4 deposits surpassed $600 million in late August 2026, setting a new all-time high, according to data reported by ChainCatcher. That figure covers aggregate deposits across Ethereum's mainnet and several Layer 2 networks.
The V4 architecture underpinning these deployments differs meaningfully from its predecessor. Aave V4 replaces V3's market-per-pool structure with a hub-and-spoke design that consolidates liquidity while allowing individual markets to maintain separate borrowing rules and risk parameters. Despite the strong growth in V4, the newer version remains a fraction of its predecessor's scale, and Aave's decision to run V3 and V4 in parallel lets users migrate at their own pace rather than under deadline pressure.
Sources:
CoinPaprika: Aave Brings V4 to Avalanche in Bet on Tokenized-Asset Lending
Crypto Briefing: Aave V4 Deposits on Ethereum and Avalanche Reach $300M
ChainCatcher: Aave V4 Deposits Exceed $600 Million
Aave’s newly launched V4 protocol on Ethereum is now distributing USDe rewards through its dedicated Ethena ecosystem market, giving DeFi users a fresh set of incentives to park capital in one of the most actively used synthetic dollar systems in crypto.
The activation marks a significant operational milestone for both protocols. Aave V4 rolled out with a purpose-built Ethena environment featuring two “Spokes,” the largest ecosystem-specific deployment at launch, supporting USDe, sUSDe, PT-sUSDe, and PT-USDe as collateral assets.
What the Ethena Spokes actually do Inside those Spokes, users can deposit Ethena’s synthetic dollar USDe and its staked variant sUSDe to borrow against, earn rewards, or engage in what the community has affectionately dubbed “Aavethena” strategies. These are recursive borrowing loops where a user deposits USDe, borrows against it, converts the borrowed funds back into USDe, and repeats the cycle to stack yield.
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USDe is designed as a delta-neutral synthetic dollar, meaning Ethena Labs backs it with productive assets hedged through perpetual futures positions. The net exposure stays close to zero while the underlying positions generate yield.
During peak periods, Aave has supported over 50% of the total USDe supply, making Aave the single most important liquidity venue for Ethena’s flagship asset.
USDe’s growth trajectory USDe supply recently surpassed $12 billion. USDe reportedly crossed the $10 billion mark in under 500 days from its inception, a pace of growth driven in large part by the leveraged looping strategies enabled by Aave’s lending infrastructure.
Ethena distributes discretionary incentives that accrue to sUSDe holders through a token vault structure. As rewards accumulate, they increase the USDe value backing each unit of sUSDe, creating a compounding dynamic that draws in yield-seekers.
New features reduce friction One of the notable additions accompanying the V4 launch is Liquid Leverage, a feature that allows users to make 50/50 USDe/sUSDe deposits. The practical upside: it enhances liquidity and rewards while reducing the cooldown period that typically applies when unstaking sUSDe.
Aave’s governance has also implemented structural safeguards for the partnership. Whitelisted redemption mechanisms are in place to manage inter-protocol risk, essentially creating controlled exit channels that prevent a bank-run scenario where mass redemptions could destabilize either protocol.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Nearly four out of every five dollars of USDT0 sitting in DeFi protocols live inside Aave V3. The lending giant controls 78.6% of the roughly $872.7 million in USDT0 deposits across decentralized finance, a concentration of stablecoin liquidity that would make most traditional banks jealous.
That number becomes even more striking when you zoom out. Aave V3’s share of the combined USDT and USDT0 total value locked sits at approximately 62.8% of $6.1B across 29 protocols, translating to about $3.83B in stablecoin deposits under its roof.
The numbers behind the surge Over a roughly 90-day stretch leading into late July 2026, net USDT deposits on Aave V3’s Core market jumped by $526 million. That pushed holdings from $1.93B to approximately $3.03B, a 57% increase in about three months.
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Utilization rates on the platform frequently exceed 90%. Those sky-high utilization rates have forced Aave’s governance to keep pace. The protocol’s community passed several votes to raise supply caps, including a June 2026 increase that pushed the ceiling to $3.48B.
USDT0 and the cross-chain factor USDT0 itself deserves some explanation. Launched in early 2025, it’s essentially Tether’s omnichain version of USDT, designed to move seamlessly across multiple blockchains using LayerZero technology and a burn-and-mint mechanism. Since going live, USDT0 has facilitated over $85B to $100B in cross-chain volume.
Its presence on various Aave markets, including deployments on networks like Plasma, has made it a natural fit for the protocol’s multi-chain strategy.
What this means for DeFi lending For competing lending protocols, the challenge is significant. When one platform controls nearly 63% of all USDT and USDT0 TVL across 29 protocols, the remaining 28 are splitting roughly $2.27B among themselves.
The borrowing activity underpinning these numbers also reveals something about broader market sentiment. High stablecoin utilization rates typically indicate active leverage in the system, with traders borrowing stablecoins to deploy into volatile assets or to fund yield strategies elsewhere.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ethereum v srpnu zrychlilo díky růstu v oblasti Layer-2, DeFi a tokenizace; BlackRock rozšířil tokenizaci na mainnetu Ethereum. GnosisDAO zároveň schválil přesun Gnosis Chain na ZK-proven Ethereum Layer-2 rollup.
TLDR: Ethereum saw accelerated August activity across Layer-2 upgrades, institutional adoption and ecosystem development. BlackRock expanded tokenization on Ethereum while Gnosis and Whitechain pursued Layer-2 transitions. Privacy tools and wallet infrastructure advanced through new applications, security features and post-quantum technology. DeFi growth continued as Aave, Morpho and Uniswap reached new deposit and trading milestones. Ethereum development activity accelerated through August as builders across the ecosystem shipped new upgrades, launched fresh protocols, and expanded institutional integrations.
Layer-2 networks advanced their infrastructure, decentralized finance protocols recorded fresh deposit milestones, and privacy-focused applications gained new momentum.
The developments touched governance, tokenization, wallet security, and onchain gaming across the wider Ethereum landscape.
Institutional and Layer-2 Expansion Gain Momentum Ethereum’s Layer-2 ecosystem saw structural changes this month. GnosisDAO approved a vote to move Gnosis Chain from an independent Layer-1 network to a ZK-proven Ethereum Layer-2 rollup.
The shift introduces synchronous composability, allowing applications on Gnosis and Ethereum to interact within a single transaction.
Institutional interest in Ethereum also expanded. BlackRock introduced its Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund with a tokenized share class deployed on Ethereum mainnet.
The asset manager additionally began tokenizing share classes tied to its $311 billion European money market fund series on the network.
Ethereum is for shipping.
Here are 35 things the Ethereum ecosystem launched, upgraded, and announced through August.
1/ GnosisDAO approved a vote to transition @gnosischain from its own L1 to a ZK-proven Ethereum L2 rollup with synchronous composability, so apps on Gnosis and…
— Ethereum (@ethereum) September 3, 2026
Arbitrum activated its ArbOS Elara upgrade, bringing more responsive transaction fees to Arbitrum One. The update also increased Stylus smart contract capacity fourfold and added new features for chains built on the Arbitrum stack.
Elsewhere, Whitechain, the network connected to the WhiteBit exchange ecosystem, announced plans to transition from an independent Layer-1 into an Ethereum Layer-2 built on the OP Stack.
Ethereum client teams also introduced the Platåberget testnet to prepare implementations ahead of the Glamsterdam network upgrade.
Privacy Tools and Wallet Infrastructure Advance Privacy-focused development remained active across the Ethereum ecosystem in August. Aztec Network launched Alpha v5, a protocol upgrade that reduced private transaction proving times. The release also brought an initial group of privacy-preserving applications onto the network.
Privacy Boost introduced a new frontend application enabling users to send private transfers directly from connected wallets.
Wallet security also advanced through new releases. MetaMask launched its Agent Wallet, an agentic tool built with spending limits, allowlists, and configurable risk profiles.
Freedom Factory opened presales for PQ1, an air-gapped hardware wallet that signs transactions using post-quantum cryptography through an Ethereum smart account.
Privacy-focused wallet Cloaked reported reaching $650,000 in deposits and $1 million in transaction volume during its first 90 days of operation.
Web3Privacy also released an updated Ethereum Privacy Ecosystem Mapping for 2026, documenting the network’s growing privacy tooling landscape.
DeFi Growth and Ecosystem Programs Continue Decentralized finance activity on Ethereum showed continued expansion during the month. Aave v4 surpassed $525 million in deposits on Ethereum mainnet.
Morpho reported crossing $880 million in total deposits on Robinhood Chain within less than two months of going live, while also reaching $5.75 billion in deposits on Base.
Uniswap processed more than $1 billion in stock token volume on Robinhood Chain, contributing to over $20 billion in total volume since the platform’s July launch.
The exchange also launched v4 Permissioned Pools, a hook standard enabling allowlisted swaps for regulated assets while keeping the base protocol permissionless.
Coinbase launched tokenized stocks on Base for non-U.S. users, backed one-to-one by a regulated custodian and held in self-custody wallets.
Base separately opened applications for its Base Batches 004 accelerator program, supporting ten early-stage teams building on the network.
Ether.fi expanded its crypto neobank offering with tokenized stocks and portfolio-backed loans facilitated through Aave.
The Ethereum Foundation also launched an autoresearch challenge focused on post-quantum security, built alongside zkSecurity and EigenLabs, placing a machine-verified security problem on a public leaderboard for open contribution.
Aave dosáhl 12,5 miliardy USD v aktivních půjčkách a ovládá zhruba 48 % trhu DeFi lendingu. Za poslední měsíc jeho úvěrové portfolio vzrostlo o více než 1,5 miliardy USD.
Aave Captures Nearly Half of a $26 Billion DeFi Lending MarketAave ($AAVE) has hit $12.5 billion in active loans, cementing its position as the dominant force in decentralized lending. The milestone reflects a sharp pickup in borrowing demand across DeFi, with Aave's loan book growing by more than $1.5 billion over the past month alone.
The broader market context makes the figure even more striking. Total active loans across major decentralized lending protocols climbed to $26.1 billion in August, up from $20.1 billion in June, representing roughly 30% growth in two months. Aave accounts for the lion's share of that activity, commanding approximately $12.5 billion in outstanding loans and roughly 48% of total market share.
Deposits have followed a similar trajectory. Aave founder Stani Kulechov noted that total deposits crossed the $30 billion mark in August, representing a 30% increase over the quarter.
What Is Driving the Borrowing SurgeAave is a non-custodial lending protocol where users deposit crypto assets as collateral and borrow against them, with all activity executed through audited smart contracts and no intermediary involved. Most on-chain borrowing is leveraged positioning: traders deposit ETH or other volatile assets as collateral, borrow stablecoins, and use those stablecoins to buy more crypto.
The renewed demand is also translating into protocol revenue. Aave collects a spread between borrowing and lending rates, and that spread multiplied by a $12.5 billion loan book generates meaningful cash flow.
Aave's nearest competitor, Morpho, sits well behind at $5.1 billion in active loans, while Spark rounds out the top three at $2.1 billion. The gap is telling: Aave holds more than double Morpho's loan book, and nearly six times Spark's. The rebound is also significant from a historical perspective. DeFi lending had been contracting for several months before this summer's turnaround, with borrowers pulling back, utilization rates declining, and protocol revenues shrinking accordingly. The latest numbers suggest that cycle has clearly reversed.
Sources:
Aave accounts for 48% of active loans as DeFi lending surges 30% to $26.1B — Crypto Briefing
Aave V3 TVL, Fees and Revenue — DefiLlama
Chainlink je podle článku klíčovou infrastrukturou DeFi a pohání zhruba 70 % globálního trhu, včetně 80 % DeFi na Ethereum a 90 % na předních layer-2 sítích.
Every financial revolution needs foundational infrastructure. For DeFi, that infrastructure is Chainlink.
From the experimentation of DeFi Summer to the institutional-grade applications of today, Chainlink has been a constant driver of innovation for the onchain finance economy. Beyond providing critical infrastructure, Chainlink is widely credited as a primary driver of DeFi’s growth to more than $200 billion TVL. The launch of Chainlink Price Feeds in 2019 enabled DeFi protocols such as Aave to launch secure markets that could safely scale from a few million to tens of billions of dollars in net deposits.
Today, Chainlink powers approximately 70% of the global DeFi market, including 80% of Ethereum DeFi and 90% of DeFi on leading layer-2 networks. Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions of dollars in transaction value, including trillions of dollars in deposits and borrows for lending platforms like Aave.
Since establishing the industry’s most secure and reliable oracle networks for market data, Chainlink has expanded into a unified platform of services spanning data, interoperability, compliance, privacy, and orchestration. The platform is now being used by the world’s largest DeFi applications to support innovative use cases across lending, derivatives, insurance, prediction markets, stablecoins, and more.
In this collection, you’ll find major Chainlink DeFi integrations and announcements across some of the largest DeFi protocols and ecosystems in the industry.
Lending & BorrowingDecentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols allow users to lend or borrow assets using smart contracts, relying on Chainlink's decentralized market data to accurately price assets, calculate loan health, and trigger liquidations.
Aave Aave is the largest DeFi protocol with tens of billions in net deposits, over a trillion dollars in all-time loans, and a majority of active loan market share. Chainlink provides Aave with the data, interoperability, and orchestration capabilities that power every Aave lending market across 20+ blockchains. Since its original launch in 2020, Aave has been fully powered by Chainlink, with every lending market deployment secured by Chainlink decentralized oracle networks. As Aave has expanded across chains and market verticals, its adoption of Chainlink has continued beyond price data to provide the foundational infrastructure that powers Aave.
Data Feeds: The primary source of data on Aave that enables:
Valuing collateral and debt in real time, which determines how much a user can borrow against deposited assets. Triggering and pricing liquidations when positions become undercollateralized, protecting against protocol insolvency.Minimizing manipulation and outage risk by using decentralized, aggregated data.Smart Value Recapture: Recaptures liquidation MEV through a decentralized network of liquidators, converting oracle-related value into protocol revenue across chains. Since Aave integrated SVR, it has recaptured tens of millions of dollars and generated additional Aave DAO revenue. "This Chainlink SVR integration increases revenue for the DAO, strengthening the Aave ecosystem." — Stani Kulechov, Aave Labs FounderLink to the announcement.
SmartData: Powers Aave Horizon to enable institutional investors to borrow against tokenized real-world assets. By securing its lending markets with high-quality Chainlink data infrastructure, Aave Horizon can support overcollateralized stablecoin loans onchain against U.S. Treasuries, credit, and equities as collateral.
Link to the announcement.
CRE: Powers automated governance and treasury operations across all chains where Aave is deployed. CCIP: Enables Aave's stablecoin GHO to be natively available on Coinbase’s L2 Base network, with all cross-chain transfers secured by Chainlink CCIP. Since adopting the CCIP-powered Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard, Aave’s GHO has grown over 925% to hundreds of millions in circulating value.
ACE: Powers a modular compliance layer that verifies policy and identity data at the transaction level, allowing Aave Horizon to enforce issuer and regulatory standards onchain for tokenized RWAs.
KaminoKamino, the largest DeFi lending protocol on Solana, leverages Chainlink to obtain the financial market data required to securely price loans and liquidate at-risk positions.
Data Streams: Enhance the performance, reliability, and security of Kamino markets by enabling accurate loan and liquidation calculations. Kamino also integrated xStocks by leveraging the Chainlink data standard to unlock tokenized equities lending. xStocks’ tokens can now be used as collateral for borrowing on Kamino’s xStocks Market, powered by Chainlink Data Streams’ custom solution that delivers reliable market data.
Link to the announcement.
Compound FinanceCompound, a DeFi lending market protocol, leverages Chainlink to underpin institutional-grade lending markets on Compound v3 and v4 with secure price data and verifiable risk controls.
Data Feeds: Provides a reliable source of pricing data that enables Compound to securely support multiple collateral types such as tokenized treasuries, equities, and structured products. Smart Value Recapture: Enables Compound to recapture liquidation-related OEV and redirect value back to the protocol.
Link to the announcement.
Maple FinanceOnchain asset manager Maple Finance leverages the Chainlink interoperability standard to accelerate the expansion of syrupUSDT and syrupUSDC.
CCIP: Enables billions of dollars worth of syrupUSDC to be natively transferable across Ethereum and Solana.Chainlink enables users to natively mint the yield-bearing stablecoin on Solana, expanding Maple’s multi-chain reach and advancing its mission to deliver institutional-grade yield to onchain borrowers.
syrupUSDC is the top token transferred via CCIP with billions of dollars in volume.
“Expanding to Solana unlocks a high-speed, high-capacity environment where Maple’s products can reach a broader class of users — from institutions to advanced DeFi participants,” said Sid Powell, CEO and Co-Founder of Maple. “With syrupUSDC now native to Solana, we're delivering yield, capital efficiency, and liquidity to one of the largest stablecoin ecosystems in crypto.”
Link to the announcement.
SparkSpark Protocol, a lending market deployed by the Sky ecosystem, leverages the Chainlink data standard to underpin lending and borrowing services with secure, high-quality data.
Price Feeds: Powers the USDS/USD, ETH/USD, and stETH/USD feeds to increase the speed at which new markets are launched within the Sky ecosystem."The integration of Chainlink Price Feeds was essential to bringing Spark Protocol online in a timely manner. We feel there is mutual benefit in continuing to build a relationship with Chainlink. Spark is all about openness and collaboration." — Sam MacPherson, CEO of Phoenix LabsLink to the announcement.
JupiterJupiter, a leading DeFi protocol on Solana, leverages Chainlink to enhance its onchain perp markets and secure short-term crypto markets on Jupiter Prediction Markets.
Data Streams: Jupiter leverages Data Streams to deliver low-latency market data to strengthen its perps market and power 5-minute & 15-minute prediction markets for BTC, ETH, and SOL on Jupiter Prediction Markets. Link to the announcement.
Tydro Tydro, the largest lending protocol on Ink, deprecated its legacy oracle solution and officially migrated to Chainlink to secure its lending markets.
Data Streams: Delivers tamper-resistant, highly accurate market prices that are continuously updated and resilient to manipulation, to secure all current and future lending markets on Tydro.Link to the announcement.
DerivativesOnchain derivatives are financial contracts, such as futures or options, whose value is derived from underlying assets, utilizing Chainlink’s low-latency, manipulation-resistant market data to accurately price assets, settle contracts, and ensure continuous protocol solvency.
LighterLighter, a leading perp DEX and the biggest ZK-based Ethereum rollup, leverages Chainlink Data Streams as its official oracle solution powering its RWA markets.
Chainlink Data Streams: Delivers high-fidelity pricing data for RWA markets, including commodities, equities, and FX. This pricing data powers critical protocol operations, such as triggering liquidations, calculating margin consumption, and triggering conditional/limit orders.Link to the announcement.
GMX GMX, a decentralized perpetual exchange, integrated Chainlink Data Streams for secure financial market data to support perpetuals, swaps, and liquidity.
Data Streams: Enables sub-second pricing updates and fast onchain transaction execution to power high-speed markets on its decentralized perpetual exchange.
Link to the announcement.
Chainlink 24/5 Equity Streams: Enables extended execution of equity perp markets beyond traditional market hours.
“We’re excited to expand our partnership with Chainlink as Lighter’s official oracle solution for RWA markets by integrating 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams. This enables us to extend our fair, low-latency perp execution beyond regular market hours without compromising data integrity.” — Vladimir Novakovski, Founder & CEO, Lighter
Link to the announcement.
ApeX ExchangeApeX Exchange, a decentralized derivatives exchange, integrated Chainlink to power and secure its RWA perpetuals.
Data Streams: Delivers low-latency market data for tokenized real-world assets, enabling users to trade RWA markets across Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Mantle. "Bringing tokenized real-world asset markets on-chain is a major milestone for ApeX Exchange, and Chainlink Data Streams is the critical infrastructure making it possible. By integrating low-latency and highly reliable RWA pricing data across five chains, we’re setting the stage for a new era of decentralized RWA trading. ApeX delivers a solution that meets the needs of traders seeking exposure across both crypto and real-world asset markets." — Leon, Co-Founder, ApeX.
Link to the announcement.
Chainlink 24/5 Equity Streams: Unlock institutional-grade onchain equity perps with enhanced risk controls such as liquidations and margin management. “Chainlink’s 24/5 U.S. Equities Streams unlock the ability to offer equity perps with institutional-grade risk controls. Continuous coverage paired with rich market metadata allows ApeX to manage margining and liquidations more accurately across pre-market, post-market, and overnight trading.” — Hamza, Marketing Lead, ApeXLink to the announcement.
MYX Finance MYX Finance, a permissionless perpetual trading platform, integrated Chainlink to power secure and efficient perp markets across all EVM-support chains.
DataLink: Enables permissionless perpetual market listings on the MYX platform. Data Streams: Delivers institutional-grade, low-latency market data that supports next-generation perpetual markets. Link to the announcement.
Price Feeds: Powers secure perp trading markets before tokens are listed on centralized exchanges. Link to the announcement.
Prediction MarketsPrediction markets enable users to trade the outcomes of real-world events, relying on Chainlink to securely connect smart contracts to real-world data sources so markets resolve accurately and transparently without a single point of failure.
PolymarketPolymarket, the leading onchain prediction markets platform, partnered with Chainlink to unlock high-speed crypto markets and enhance resolution accuracy.
Data Streams: Deliver verifiable, low-latency oracle reports to enable near-instantaneous resolution and instant payouts of asset pricing markets
Polymarket’s Chainlink-powered 5-minute, 15-minute, and 4-hour crypto prediction markets have reached billions in trading volume.
Link to the announcement.
ADI Predicstreet ADI Predictstreet, the first-ever Official Prediction Market Partner of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, adopted Chainlink's orchestration standard to enable accurate sports markets and unlock instant payouts for over 6 billion fans worldwide.
CRE: Enables Predictstreet to automate market creation, resolution, and settlement, with high-quality FIFA data.Link to the announcement.
World World, the premier prediction market on Solana, adopted Chainlink as its primary oracle infrastructure to unlock immediate resolutions & instant payouts.
World is actively expanding its Chainlink-powered markets across:
• Macro and Markets: Interest rates, inflation, GDP, employment, equities, commodities, and FX
• Major Sports: NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, tennis, golf, MMA, and more
• Elections: U.S. and International
CRE: Enables World’s prediction markets to settle rapidly with deterministic outcome resolution.Data Streams: Delivers fast, accurate data to power high-performance crypto prediction markets on World.Link to the announcement.
MyriadMyriad adopted Chainlink as the official oracle platform to power new crypto prediction markets.
CRE: Powers a unified orchestration layer to automate market creation, resolution, and settlement for Myriad’s prediction markets.Data Streams: Delivers fast, accurate data to power high-performance prediction markets on Myriad.Link to the announcement.
Predict.fun Predict.fun adopted Chainlink as core infrastructure to power high-speed crypto prediction markets.
CRE: Automates the market creation and lifecycle management required to operate Predict.fun prediction markets. DataLink: Delivers data from Binance’s order books to Predict.fun. Link to the announcement.
Opinion Labs Opinion Labs, a prediction market, leverages Chainlink for real-time equity data to power new prediction markets.
Chainlink 24/5 Equity Streams: Delivers real-time equity data to enable accurate settlement and enhanced resolutions for always-on equity-focused prediction markets.
Link to the announcement.
Limitless Limitless, the largest prediction market on Base, adopted Chainlink as its oracle infrastructure to unlock high-speed prediction markets.
Data Streams: Delivers fast, accurate data to power high-speed resolution for short-term, high-volume crypto markets and enables instant payouts on Limitless.Link to the announcement.
Stablecoins & PaymentsStablecoins provide a medium of exchange that forms the backbone of global onchain payments, with Chainlink providing price data and enhanced utility by continuously verifying offchain fiat collateral balances, unlocking DeFi utility, and securely processing cross-chain payments.
World Liberty Financial World Liberty Financial adopted Chainlink interoperability standard to power cross-chain transfers of its $4B+ USD1 stablecoin.
CCIP: Enables builders to access USD1 across chains for onchain payments, lending markets, and other DeFi applications.CRE: Continuously pulls reserve data from BitGo, verifies it, and delivers it onchain. Price Feeds: Deliver secure, reliable market data to enable the launch of WLFI's Aave V3 instance. Proof of Reserve: Enhances the transparency around the collateral backing USD1. Link to the announcement.
PaxosPaxos, a leading tokenization platform, adopted Chainlink to accelerate the adoption of PayPal USD (PYUSD), PayPal’s USD-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos, by increasing its utility across DeFi.
Price Feeds: Delivers secure market data around the PYUSD stablecoin, enabling developers to integrate the stablecoin using accurate, reliable, and decentralized market data for PYUSD onchain. Link to the announcement.
Ripple Ripple adopted the Chainlink standard to enhance RLUSD utility and expand access in the multi-chain DeFi ecosystem.
Price Feeds: Delivers secure, reliable pricing data for RLUSD to support trading, lending, and integrations into DeFi applications. “As RLUSD scales across DeFi ecosystems, reliable and transparent pricing is essential to maintaining stability and building trust in its utility within decentralized markets. By leveraging the Chainlink standard, we bring trusted data onchain, further strengthening RLUSD’s utility across both institutional and decentralized applications.” — Jack McDonald, SVP, Stablecoin at RippleLink to the announcement.
United Stables Following a security review, United Stables adopted Chainlink as its official data oracle and cross-chain infrastructure to expand the distribution of the U stablecoin across DeFi and deliver institutional-grade security for the United Stables ecosystem.
Data Feeds: Delivers highly accurate, decentralized market data to enhance the utility of U across leading lending protocols.Proof of Reserve: Provides automated, cryptographic verification of underlying collateral to ensure near-real-time balance sheet transparency for United Stables.Link to the announcement.
KRWQ KRWQ, the world’s largest Korean Won stablecoin from IQ and Frax, adopted Chainlink to unlock automated reserve verifications for its stablecoin.
Proof of Reserve: Enhances transparency into the offchain reserves backing its Korean won stablecoin, accelerating its distribution across the onchain economy.Link to the announcement.
Tokenized Real-World Assets Tokenized real-world assets represent traditional assets onchain, enabling them to interact with smart contracts and decentralized applications. Chainlink provides the infrastructure needed to connect these tokenized assets with the data and systems they depend on, including reliable market data, verification of underlying reserves, and secure interoperability across blockchains and existing financial systems.
Coinbase Coinbase, the leading publicly-listed firm for digital assets, is leveraging Chainlink to transfer all Coinbase Wrapped Assets across chains and to bring its premium exchange data onchain for the first time.
CCIP: Serves as the exclusive bridging solution for all Coinbase Wrapped Assets, enabling cross-chain transfers and expansion.Coinbase Wrapped Assets, which include cbBTC, cbETH, cbDOGE, cbLTC, cbADA, and more, currently have an aggregate market cap exceeding billions.
"We chose Chainlink because they are an industry leader for cross-chain connectivity. Their infrastructure provides a reliable means to expand Coinbase Wrapped Asset offerings." — Josh Leavitt, Senior Director, Product Management at Coinbase.
Link to the announcement.
DataLink: Delivers Coinbase’s premium exchange data underpinning billions in trading activity onchain.With DataLink, protocols can now access a wide range of Coinbase's premium datasets directly onchain, including:
Order book dataSpot pricesPerpetual futures data, including from Coinbase International ExchangeE-mini futures dataAdditional datasets spanning crypto, metals, energy, and equity futures via Coinbase Derivatives Exchange
Link to the announcement.
Robinhood Chain Robinhood Chain, Robinhood's Ethereum-based layer 2 blockchain, adopted Chainlink as its official data and cross-chain oracle infrastructure powering Robinhood Chain and all Robinhood-issued assets, including Stock Tokens like NVDA, GOOG, AAPL, and more.
By leveraging Chainlink, Robinhood Chain unlocked native connectivity across chains, enabling users to access highly secure real-world assets at scale.
CCIP: Unlocks secure cross-chain connectivity for Robinhood assets across the multi-chain ecosystem.Data Feeds: Powers fast, secure, and accurate pricing for Robinhood Stock Tokens. Link to the announcement.
Ondo Ondo, a leading RWA tokenization, selected Chainlink as its official data oracle to accelerate the adoption of tokenized stocks and ETFs.
Price Feeds: Delivers custom tokenized equity market data that captures all economic and corporate action events, such as dividends, delivering comprehensive valuations directly onchain.
“With the recent launch of Ondo Global Markets, we're witnessing the convergence of traditional and decentralized finance in real time. By adopting Chainlink as the official oracle infrastructure for our tokenized stocks we're making our tokenized assets seamlessly composable across DeFi and institutional rails." — Nathan Allman, CEO & Founder of Ondo Finance
Link to the announcement.
xStocks xStocks, a leading tokenized equities platform, is leveraging Chainlink to make its tokenized stocks globally accessible through DeFi.
CCIP: Enables xStocks’ expansion to other blockchains across the multi-chain DeFi ecosystem.Data Streams: Powers custom xStocks Data Streams, a bespoke oracle solution that delivers high onchain data accuracy, sub-second price latency, and the ability to verify corporate actions in real time.Proof of Reserve: Increases the transparency and reliability to the collateralization of xStocks assets. Link to the announcement.
Bridgetower Bridgetower adopted Chainlink to unlock the distribution of tokenized securities tied to the DOM X Arizona Copper-Gold Project, a natural resource asset valued at $11.06 billion.
CRE: Powers transparent, compliant, and scalable asset issuance, unlocking global distribution of Bridgetower’s tokenized real-world assets.Link to the announcement.
Tenbin Tenbin deprecated its legacy cross-chain solution and migrated to Chainlink to expand distribution of its tokenized assets, including tGLD, tMXN, and tBRL, across the multi-chain ecosystem.
CCIP: Unlocks the highest level of cross-chain security to enable the expansion of all Tenbin’s tokenized assets across the multi-chain ecosystem.Link to the announcement.
Commertize Tokenization platform Commertize deprecated its legacy bridging solution and migrated to Chainlink as its official cross-chain infrastructure.
CCIP: Unlocks the highest level of cross-chain security to enable the expansion of Commertize tokenized assets across the multi-chain ecosystem.Data Feeds: Deliver tamper-resistant, highly accurate market prices that are continuously updated and resilient to manipulation. Proof of Reserve: Increases the transparency and reliability of the collateralization of Commertize assets. Link to the announcement.
Superstate SuperState, an asset management firm, is leveraging Chainlink to enhance the transparency and utility of the USTB tokenized fund.
Data Feeds: Deliver onchain NAV data that enhances the transparency and utility of the UTSB tokenized fund. Proof of Reserve: Enhances the onchain verification of AUM data. Link to the announcement.
Backed Backed, a tokenized equity platform, integrated Chainlink to enhance its tokenized RWAs with increased utility, liquidity, and interoperability.
CCIP: Powers secure cross-chain token transfers of bTokens across Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, and Solana.Proof of Reserve: Delivers real-time, decentralized verification of bToken’s collateralization, ensuring transparency for users.Data Feeds: Delivers highly accurate, tamper-proof market data for bTokens.Link to the announcement.
Bridgetower Bridgetower adopted Chainlink to unlock the distribution of tokenized securities tied to the DOM X Arizona Copper-Gold Project, a natural resource asset valued at $11.06 billion.
CRE: Powers transparent, compliant, and scalable asset issuance, unlocking global distribution of Bridgetower’s tokenized real-world assets.Link to the announcement.
Tenbin Tenbin deprecated its legacy cross-chain solution and migrated to Chainlink to expand distribution of its tokenized assets, including tGLD, tMXN, and tBRL, across the multi-chain ecosystem.
CCIP: Unlocks the highest level of cross-chain security to enable the expansion of all Tenbin’s tokenized assets across the multi-chain ecosystem.Link to the announcement.
Commertize Tokenization platform Commertize deprecated its legacy bridging solution and migrated to Chainlink as its official cross-chain infrastructure.
CCIP: Unlocks the highest level of cross-chain security to enable the expansion of Commertize tokenized assets across the multi-chain ecosystem.Data Feeds: Deliver tamper-resistant, highly accurate market prices that are continuously updated and resilient to manipulation. Proof of Reserve: Increases the transparency and reliability of the collateralization of Commertize assets. Link to the announcement.
Liquid Staking & Restaking Liquid staking and restaking enable users to earn rewards while maintaining token ownership for use in DeFi, with Chainlink providing the tamper-proof exchange rates necessary to safely value and utilize these receipt tokens as collateral across the ecosystem.
LidoLido, the leading liquid staking protocol, is leveraging Chainlink for market data to securely support Lido staked assets and as the official cross-chain infrastructure for Wrapped Staked Ether (wstETH).
CCIP: Powers cross-chain transfers of wstETH by leveraging the Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard.“For stakers, the ability to move assets quickly across the ecosystem is essential for seizing opportunities, rebalancing liquidity, and managing their staked ETH efficiently. By adopting Chainlink CCIP as the official cross-chain standard for wstETH, we’re giving users and builders a standardized, secure way to move wstETH across chains. The Cross-Chain Token standard keeps ownership with the Lido community while adding the programmatic safeguards needed as wstETH scales to more networks.” — Jakov Buratovic, Master of DeFi at Lido.
Lido also expanded direct staking to Linea, a leading Ethereum layer-2, powered by the Chainlink interoperability standard. Via Chainlink CCIP, DeFi users can stake ETH and receive wstETH directly on Linea via a single transaction.
Link to the announcement.
Price Feeds: Enable DeFi protocols across leading blockchains to securely support Lido staked assets, such as Aave.Link to the announcement.
Data Feeds: Provide reliable and tamper-resistant wstETH exchange rates across chains, ensuring users receive fair value when staking through liquidity pools. Link to the announcement.
Solv Protocol Solv Protocol, a BTCFi platform, integrated Chainlink to bring Bitcoin users into the multi-chain DeFi ecosystem.
CCIP: Powers Solv across BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana. CCIP also enables native transfers of SolvBTC across chains via the Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard.Link to the announcement.
Lombard Finance Lombard, a leading provider of Bitcoin Liquid Staking Tokens, integrated Chainlink to scale and secure BTCFi.
CCIP: Facilitates secure cross-chain token transfers of LBTC across Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, and Solana. CCIP also enables native token transfers of BTC.b across Avalanche, Ethereum, and Katana.Proof of Reserve: Delivers real-time, decentralized verification of LBTC’s collateralization, ensuring transparency for users. Price Feeds: Provides LBTC access to highly accurate, tamper-proof market data, creating a strong foundation for LBTC’s adoption to scale.“Chainlink’s decision to partner with Lombard speaks to our shared commitment to building institutional-grade infrastructure for Bitcoin’s integration into decentralized finance. We’re leading the way in BTCFi, setting an industry-standard for how Bitcoin is collateralized, staked, and integrated into DeFi. With Chainlink CCIP, Proof of Reserve, and Price Feeds, we will securely scale BTCFi and rebuild decentralized finance atop Bitcoin, unlocking a host of new financial products.” — Jacob Phillips, Co-founder of Lombard
Link to the announcement.
Kelp Following an exploit of their legacy bridge provider, Kelp migrated rsETH to Chainlink to power secure cross-chain transfers and verifiable minting requirements.
CCIP: Unlocks secure cross-chain transfers of rsETH and expands distribution across the multi-chain ecosystemProof of Reserve Secure Mint: Helps ensure that new tokens are only minted when reserves meet or exceed the required backing. Link to the announcement.
AI AgentsOnchain AI agents are autonomous programs capable of holding value and executing complex transactions, empowered by Chainlink's infrastructure that provides them with offchain computation, real-world APIs, and verified data needed to act independently.
x402 x402, is an open internet-native payment protocol that enables AI agents to make onchain payments with stablecoins, partnered with Chainlink to enable AI agents to access and purchase CRE workflows.
CRE: Enables AI agents to directly trigger CRE workflow and allows AI agents to autonomously pay for CRE workflows.“Seeing industry leaders like Chainlink team up with x402 reinforces what we’ve long believed: onchain payments will power the future of AI. We’re excited to see what developers build with CRE and x402, creating new seamless, secure ways to transact onchain.” — Erik Reppel, Coauthor of the x402 Whitepaper
Link to the announcement.
Virtuals Protocol Virtuals Protocol migrated the VIRTUAL token to Chainlink as its exclusive interoperability infrastructure to unlock secure cross-chain payments for AI agents.
CCIP: Secures cross-chain transfers of VIRTUAL, unlocking secure cross-chain payments for its AI agents. Link to the announcement.
ElizaOS ElizaOS is an operating system that enables devs to build, orchestrate, and collaborate with AI agents, and leverages Chainlink to enable secure cross-chain token transfers of its native token.
CCIP: Enables secure transfers of elizaOS across Base, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana, expanding its reach into the multi-chain ecosystem. Link to the announcement.
Aave spustil na iOS early access pro svou spořicí aplikaci s bankovními vklady a stablecoiny. Uživatelé na Androidu a webu zůstávají na čekací listině.
The savings app supports bank and stablecoin deposits; a July proposal described swaps and foreign exchange as additions planned for 2026.
Aave began onboarding early users to its mobile app on iOS on Wednesday, moving its consumer savings product into early access while Android and web users remain on a waitlist.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov said Ghost Passes let users invite friends to skip the waitlist.
The announcement marks a phased opening rather than the software’s first appearance in Apple’s store. The App Store already listed the Aave app and showed a recent version update before Wednesday’s onboarding announcement.
Deposits, Yield and WithdrawalsAave’s current product page describes the mobile product as a savings app and emphasizes depositing, earning and withdrawing. Users can connect bank accounts and debit cards, while its stablecoin wallet supports deposits and withdrawals on Arbitrum.
Deposited funds generate yield through open lending markets. Aave says the assets are supplied to lending pools, where borrowers pay interest that flows back to depositors.
The current product page does not advertise direct borrowing or a user-directed trading feature. In July, Aave Labs described card fees, asset swaps and foreign-exchange products as additions expected to phase in during 2026, saying at the time that the swap and FX capabilities had not been built or cleared for launch.
Stable Vaults support multiple stablecoins and can swap commonly denominated stablecoins for one-to-one redemption. That is part of the vault’s savings infrastructure, rather than evidence of a general-purpose trading feature in the app.
Aave describes the app as self-custodial despite its fintech-style login and recovery features. The app’s terms say its embedded wallet generates and stores private keys locally, while Aave Labs never takes possession of users’ assets or keys. The launch architecture uses smart accounts to abstract wallet setup and gas management from the user.
Access Remains LimitedAave Labs said in July that its iOS waitlist had about 50,000 registered users and that identity checks on the waitlist were then available only to U.S. users. The app’s terms make access subject to local law and prohibit users in sanctioned and other listed restricted jurisdictions. Aave’s Wednesday launch post did not identify the countries included in the early-access cohort.
The app extends Aave Labs’ push into retail distribution after its October 2025 acquisition of Stable Finance, whose team built an iOS app for stablecoin savings. Aave said at the time that Stable’s existing app would be phased out and its technology used in future Aave products.
Stable Vaults now power the savings layer in the Aave App and are also offered to fintechs seeking to embed stablecoin yield. Broader distribution remains the next step: Android and web users were still being routed to the waitlist as of Wednesday.
EtherFi Cash was V4’s second-largest market at $257 million, while Aave V3 retained a much larger $31 billion deposit base.
Aave’s live onchain dashboard listed V4 user deposits at $806 million. Deposits jumped by 30% over seven days and reached a new all-time high above $800 million.
The latest reading extends a steep August climb. Aave announced that V4 deposits crossed $500 million on Aug. 19 and $600 million on Aug. 21, before moving above $800 million six days later. A separate announcement said Ethereum V4 deposits alone crossed $500 million on Aug. 25. EtherFi Cash accounted for V4’s second-largest current market.
The market is supporting borrowing as well as deposits. V4 had $216 million in active loans on the dashboard. Aave separately measured $62 million of active loans in the EtherFi market, where weETH collateral backed WETH borrowing at 92% utilization.
The current market mix includes V4 deployments on Ethereum, Optimism and Avalanche. Ethereum Core held $378 million, followed by EtherFi Cash on Optimism at $257 million, Ethereum Global Dollar at $75 million and Ethereum Prime at $63 million. Avalanche Core and Ethereum Plus accounted for another $18 million and $15 million, respectively.
The deposit mix was led by weETH at $97 million and USDG at $90 million. WETH and USDC each accounted for $81 million, followed by liquidETH at $77 million, liquidUSD at $58 million and WBTC at $54 million.
V3 Retains a Far Larger BaseAave’s equivalent V3 dashboard showed $31 billion in user deposits, far above V4’s $806 million. Ethereum Core alone held $25 billion on V3.
The versions organize liquidity differently. Aave’s documentation says V4 replaces V3’s market-per-pool design with a hub-and-spoke system: hubs consolidate liquidity and accounting, while spokes apply separate borrowing rules and risk limits to particular markets.
On Aug. 27, TokenLogic said the EtherFi Cash market had been live for two weeks and was moving toward a $500 million lending-capacity target.
Arch Lending začal přijímat PAXG a XAUT jako zástavu pro půjčky až do 75% LTV. Tokenizované zlato se tak čím dál víc používá jako produktivní kolaterál v DeFi.
Tokenized gold has moved deeper into crypto lending after Aave’s XAUT-backed debt reached a $25 million ceiling and Arch Lending added loans against the two largest gold tokens.
Summary
Aave’s $25 million XAUT debt ceiling was fully used before additional capacity filled within 24 hours. Arch’s Himanshu Sahay said investors increasingly want to use tokenized gold instead of passively holding it. Arch now accepts PAXG and XAUT as collateral for loans at up to 75% LTV. Borrowers retain their gold exposure but face interest, liquidation, custody, and issuer risks. Arch co-founder and chief technology officer Himanshu Sahay told crypto.news that demand for tokenized gold loans shows holders are beginning to treat the assets as usable parts of the digital financial system, rather than only as a way to track bullion prices.
“The most interesting thing about the demand we’re seeing around tokenized gold is that people aren’t just treating these assets as a way to get exposure to the price of gold. They’re increasingly looking at them as something that can be put to work within the broader crypto financial system.”
Demand recorded on Aave provides one example. In late January, the decentralized lending protocol’s XAUT market reached its $25 million debt ceiling, according to a Chaos Labs assessment.
Chaos Labs recommended raising the ceiling to $30 million after finding demand to use XAUT as collateral for stablecoin borrowing. Within days, the risk manager reported that the added capacity had filled in less than 24 hours and proposed staged increases to $36 million, $43 million, and eventually $50 million.
Aave demand has tested tokenized gold lending capacity Although the Aave activity showed that investors were willing to borrow against tokenized bullion, Chaos Labs found that the market was highly concentrated. Its February assessment said the largest position accounted for more than 75% of all debt secured by XAUT.
The same report described the users’ health factors as moderately safe and cited XAUT’s liquidity and relatively conservative volatility when assessing liquidation risk. Aave listed XAUT in isolation mode, preventing holders from using the asset to borrow more volatile tokens.
Initial parameters allowed users to borrow up to 70% of their XAUT collateral’s value, while liquidation could begin at 75%. The arrangement treated XAUT as collateral only, meaning users could supply it to support debt but could not borrow the gold token itself.
Sahay described the January activity as more meaningful than a one-time jump because the extra capacity was also used quickly. According to him, the demand indicates that “the collateral itself is becoming useful.”
Current balances require a separate reading from the January episode. Aave’s Ethereum v3 reserve page recently showed about $70 million of XAUT supplied but no XAUT-backed debt, according to figures provided by Sahay. He said the earlier borrowing should therefore be treated as historical evidence of willingness to use the asset, rather than a description of Aave’s present debt balance.
Recent activity has also extended beyond lending. An August CoinShares report found that real-world asset deposits had tripled to $7.4 billion even as DeFi activity declined, with XAUT and PAXG producing much of the measured spot activity. As reported earlier this month, traders used the two tokens to change their gold exposure as bullion prices moved.
Tokenized gold lets holders borrow without selling For investors who still want exposure to gold, Sahay said borrowing and selling meet different financial needs. A sale closes the position, while a collateralized loan supplies cash or stablecoins without requiring the investor to give up the asset immediately.
“If an investor sells their gold exposure, they have exited the position,” Sahay said. “Borrowing allows them to access liquidity while retaining exposure to the underlying asset.”
Tokenization reduces some practical barriers because the collateral already exists on a blockchain. Holders do not have to transport physical bullion into a lending arrangement or arrange separate storage before seeking a loan.
PAXG and XAUT each represent a claim linked to physical gold, although their legal and operational structures differ. Paxos says one PAXG represents one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery gold held in professional vaults. Tether says one XAUT represents one fine troy ounce of gold held in Switzerland.
On Aug. 28, Tether’s website placed XAUT’s market capitalization at approximately $3.27 billion, while CoinGecko valued PAXG at about $1.93 billion. The figures give the two products a combined market value of approximately $5.2 billion.
Tokenized gold previously reached another milestone in March when Tether deployed XAUT on BNB Chain. The BNB Chain expansion gave the token another settlement network alongside its existing infrastructure, while each unit remained tied to an ounce of physical bullion.
Sahay cautioned that digital access does not remove the dangers created by debt. In his view, a lending service still needs suitable LTV limits, custody arrangements, and risk controls because collateral can be liquidated when its value no longer supports the outstanding loan.
“The fact that an asset can be used as collateral doesn’t mean it should be leveraged aggressively,” he said.
Gold and Bitcoin serve different collateral needs Rather than presenting tokenized gold as a replacement for Bitcoin, Sahay said the assets offer different characteristics to borrowers and lenders.
Bitcoin has more established liquidity across crypto markets and plays a central role as a native digital asset. Gold, however, has a much longer record as a store of value and has historically experienced less price volatility than Bitcoin, according to Sahay.
Gold-backed tokens may therefore appeal to investors who want on-chain borrowing without taking the same level of directional exposure associated with Bitcoin. The blockchain token still introduces risks tied to its issuer, custodian, smart contract, and redemption terms, even when the underlying bullion moves less sharply than BTC.
“I don’t think tokenized gold replaces Bitcoin as collateral. I think it expands the range of assets that can support crypto-native liquidity.”
His comments follow a previous interview in which he identified qualified custody, zero rehypothecation and clear collateral rules as safeguards for digital-asset loans. The custody discussion also covered margin calls and liquidations, which can force a sale when borrowers fail to add collateral or reduce their debt.
Arch has added PAXG and XAUT-backed loans Within that developing market, Arch Lending has started accepting PAXG and XAUT as collateral at up to 75% LTV, according to information supplied by the company. Anchorage Digital will hold the pledged tokens.
Arch says it does not rehypothecate borrower collateral, meaning the assets are not lent to another party to produce revenue. Its website states that Anchorage holds collateral in segregated wallets and that Arch uses partial liquidations intended to sell only the amount required to restore a loan’s health.
The company’s public website has not yet added PAXG and XAUT to its displayed list of supported assets, which still names BTC, ETH and SOL and shows an LTV of up to 60% for existing loans. The 75% limit and support for both gold tokens therefore come from the company’s new product information.
Competitors already offer parts of the same service. Nexo says eligible customers can borrow against PAXG or XAUT, subject to location and account requirements, while YouHodler and CoinRabbit advertise PAXG-backed products. Ledn announced XAUT-backed lending in June but said the service would become available later in 2026.
US borrowers face tax, access and liquidation questions For US investors, borrowing against an appreciated digital asset generally differs from selling it because the Internal Revenue Service treats a sale or other disposal as an event that requires the owner to calculate a capital gain or loss. A loan does not involve the same immediate disposal, although a lender’s sale of collateral may create tax consequences.
Individual circumstances, loan structures and liquidation events can affect reporting, and the IRS advises digital-asset owners to keep transaction records and consult a qualified tax professional when necessary.
Arch operates legally as ChainFi Inc. and provides loans to US borrowers under NMLS number 2637200. Its disclosures state that product availability and interest rates vary by jurisdiction, loan type, and principal amount.
According to the company’s current state restrictions, loans are unavailable to individual residents of California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont. Arch also requires borrowers to complete identity checks before transferring collateral and receiving USD or USDC.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Aave V3 drží 3,83 miliardy USD z celkových 6,1 miliardy USD v USDT a USDT0 napříč DeFi, tedy podíl 62,8 %. Data ukazují výraznou koncentraci likvidity stablecoinů na jediném protokolu.
Nearly two-thirds of all USDT and USDT0 sitting in decentralized finance belongs to a single protocol. Aave V3 holds $3.83 billion of the $6.1 billion deposited across 29 DeFi venues, good for a 62.8% market share that no competitor comes close to matching.
The data, recorded by Token Terminal on August 19, paints a picture of consolidation that would make any traditional bank jealous. When one platform vacuums up that much stablecoin liquidity, it stops being a lending protocol and starts functioning more like DeFi’s central bank for dollar-denominated assets.
The numbers behind the dominance Aave V3’s stablecoin haul didn’t appear overnight. Over the 90 days leading into late July 2026, the protocol saw a net increase of $526 million in USDT deposits alone. That’s roughly $5.8 million flowing in every single day for three months straight.
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Aave’s overall TVL has swung between $17 billion and $30 billion throughout 2026, buffeted by broader market volatility. Strategic governance decisions have played a role too. The protocol has expanded supply limits through community votes, essentially raising the ceiling on how much can be deposited.
USDT0 and the omnichain twist The $6.1 billion figure isn’t just plain USDT. It includes USDT0, Tether’s omnichain variant built on LayerZero technology that lets the stablecoin move seamlessly between blockchains. Operated by Everdawn Labs and licensed by Tether, USDT0 was introduced in early 2025 and employs a burn-and-mint model, serving markets that lack native USDT issuance while remaining backed 1:1 by reserves on Ethereum.
USDT0 has processed over $85 billion in lifetime bridge volume by late August 2026. Aave V3 has embraced this omnichain approach, with USDT0 appearing in several of its markets including deployments on Plasma and Polygon.
What this concentration means for DeFi There are two ways to read Aave’s 63% stranglehold on USDT and USDT0 deposits. The optimistic interpretation: deep liquidity on a battle-tested protocol means better pricing, lower slippage, and more efficient capital deployment for everyone. When $3.83 billion sits in one place, borrowing rates stabilize, large trades execute cleanly, and the overall user experience improves.
The more cautious read: concentration risk is real. If nearly two-thirds of DeFi’s Tether liquidity lives on one protocol, any smart contract vulnerability, governance misstep, or regulatory action targeting Aave could send shockwaves through the entire stablecoin lending market. The remaining 28 venues splitting the other 37% don’t have the depth to absorb a sudden migration.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aave oznámil, že celková depozita na protokolu překročila 30 miliard USD, což představuje ve 3. čtvrtletí nárůst o 30 %. Stani Kulechov k tomu řekl: „Likvidita je zpět“.
Stani Kulechov, the founder and CEO of Aave, announced on August 22 that total deposits on the Aave protocol have crossed $30 billion, a milestone that arrives with a pointed three-word editorial: “liquidity is back.”
The figure represents a 30% increase in deposits for the third quarter of the year.
What the numbers say To understand the $30B deposit figure, it helps to separate two metrics that often get conflated. Total deposits on Aave count every asset supplied to the protocol, including capital that has been borrowed against and redeployed. DeFiLlama’s Total Value Locked reading, which sat around $17.6B as of mid-August, uses a different methodology, netting out borrowed amounts and applying its own chain coverage and asset inclusion criteria.
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Active loans on the protocol are running at roughly $10B, which means a meaningful portion of that deposited capital is already doing work inside the ecosystem.
Aave V4, the protocol’s latest architecture upgrade, saw deposits climb from around $50M when the deployment launched in early May to over $400M by mid-August.
Lifetime deposits on Aave have now totaled $3.46 trillion since the protocol launched, a figure that puts its $30B current snapshot in perspective.
Where Aave sits historically Aave has been here before, and higher. Net deposits surpassed $50B during mid-2025, and TVL readings exceeded $40B in early 2026. The current $30B sits below those peaks, which means the “liquidity is back” framing from Kulechov carries some nuance: the protocol is recovering from a drawdown, not setting an all-time high.
The protocol itself has a longer history than many DeFi participants remember. Aave began life as ETHLend in 2017, a peer-to-peer lending platform built on Ethereum. It rebranded to Aave in 2018 and pivoted to a liquidity pool model. The fact that it remains the leading decentralized lending protocol by deposits and overall activity in 2026 is a product of that early architectural decision and years of incremental iteration.
Governance over the protocol is managed through the AAVE token, which gives holders the ability to vote on protocol parameters, risk configurations, and treasury allocations.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aave V4 překonal 600 milionů USD v celkových depozitech a dosáhl nového historického maxima. Růst táhne poptávka po stablecoinech a tokenizovaných treasuries.
Aave V4 has surpassed $600 million in total deposits, marking a new historical peak for the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol. This milestone reflects renewed capital flows into crypto lending and signals increasing institutional participation in decentralized finance.
Institutional interest and on-chain capital inflowThe latest surge in deposits is driven by heightened demand for stablecoins and tokenized treasuries, as more traditional financial players move funds on-chain. Reports from DefiLlama indicate that Aave V4’s $600 million figure represents aggregate deposits across both Ethereum’s mainnet and several Layer 2 (L2) networks.
Market observers attribute this growth to rising stablecoin yields, which continue to outpace returns from many conventional deposit products. The transition from Aave V3 to V4 has also accelerated as users seek unified liquidity pools and improved risk management modules introduced in the newest version.
Aave V4’s rapid accumulation of $600 million showcases both confident institutional adoption and a strong migration from previous versions, bolstered by the platform’s streamlined liquidity architecture and granular risk controls.
The increase in borrowing demand is notable, with higher utilization ratios observed for USDC, USDT, and GHO stablecoins. With V4 audits nearing completion and advanced cross-chain features poised for release, Aave appears well positioned to capture additional liquidity in the coming months.
Technical upgrades and competitive landscapeAave is a leading decentralized lending protocol that enables users to borrow and lend cryptocurrencies without the need for intermediaries. The protocol’s upgrade to V4 introduces a modular system designed for interoperability across networks, and it seeks to establish itself as core infrastructure for institutional DeFi participants.
Developers focused on building lending, repo, and structured financial products across Ethereum, Base, and Polygon networks are expected to benefit from the modular architecture. This competition has intensified with platforms like Compound and Morpho, as rivals work to match Aave’s capital efficiency and innovative liquidity tools.
Mini dictionary: GHO — GHO is a decentralized, overcollateralized stablecoin native to the Aave protocol, designed to maintain a stable value pegged to the US dollar and can be minted by users supplying collateral to the platform.
ProtocolTotal DepositsKey FeaturesAave V4$600 millionUnified liquidity, granular risk control, cross-chain supportCompound$2.6 billion*Algorithmic interest, no unified liquidityMorpho$1.7 billion*P2P optimization, flexible rates*Estimated as of the latest data from DefiLlama.
Positive outlook as audits and integrations progressThe increase in Aave V4 deposits aligns with recent trends in decentralized finance, including tokenized treasuries crossing $15 billion and surging stablecoin settlement volumes. The protocol has pursued collaborations with ETF custodial service providers and real-world asset (RWA) firms, attracting further institutional capital.
Aave’s latest developments are expected to pave the way for more governance decisions this year, especially relating to the addition of new assets and cross-chain liquidity support. The completion of the ongoing V4 audits is anticipated as a catalyst for further development and adoption.
Institutions exploring digital credit lines have pointed to Aave V4’s risk controls and enhanced liquidity as foundational tools, reinforcing the protocol’s role in the evolving DeFi infrastructure for treasury management.
As traditional and crypto-native funds continue to seek higher yields, Aave’s expanded feature set is expected to strengthen the platform’s position among both retail and institutional users.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
BTCS ve 2. čtvrtletí splatila Aave dluh za 8,2 milionu USD a snížila tak DeFi páku. Na konci kvartálu měla jen 317 113 USD v hotovosti a stablecoinech, ale stále 36,0 milionu USD v úvěrech vůči DeFi protokolům.
BTCS Inc. reduced its DeFi leverage in the second quarter, repaying $8.2 million in debt to the Aave protocol as the company shifted its balance sheet away from more aggressive borrowing.
In its Q2 2026 Form 10-Q filing, BTCS reported ending the quarter with $317,113 in cash and stablecoins. The company also reported $36.0 million in outstanding loans payable to DeFi protocols, showing that its digital-asset balance sheet remained heavily tied to crypto, staking, and DeFi activity.
The numbers are striking, but they need careful framing.
This is not proof that BTCS is insolvent. It is not evidence of an Aave failure. It is a corporate treasury and risk-management story involving Ethereum, DeFi borrowing, and balance-sheet leverage.
TL;DR BTCS repaid $8.2 million in debt to Aave during Q2 2026. The company ended the quarter with $317,113 in cash and stablecoins. BTCS still reported $36.0 million in outstanding loans payable to DeFi protocols. Corporate Treasuries Are Getting More Complex Public companies involved in crypto no longer just hold Bitcoin or Ethereum on the balance sheet.
Some stake assets. Some borrow against assets. Some use DeFi protocols. Some run validator infrastructure. Some hold a mix of tokens, cash, stablecoins, loans, and operating assets.
BTCS fits into that more complex category.
Its filing shows a company using crypto-native financial infrastructure while still reporting through traditional public-company disclosures. That combination gives investors a rare view into how DeFi leverage can appear inside a listed company’s financial statements.
The result is more transparent, but also more complicated.
Why The Aave Repayment Matters Aave is one of the largest DeFi lending protocols.
Repaying $8.2 million in Aave debt suggests BTCS was actively reducing leverage rather than simply carrying the same borrowing profile forward. That can be read as a risk-management move, especially during a period when Ethereum and DeFi markets remain volatile.
Reducing debt can lower liquidation risk and simplify the balance sheet.
But it also shows how closely some crypto companies are tied to on-chain lending conditions. When a company borrows through DeFi, its financial position can depend on collateral values, interest rates, liquidity, and liquidation thresholds.
That is very different from a plain cash-and-equity treasury.
The Cash Figure Needs Context The $317,113 cash and stablecoin figure may look low at first glance.
But it should be read alongside the rest of the balance sheet, including digital assets, staking exposure, and outstanding DeFi loans. Crypto-native companies may hold value in assets that do not resemble traditional cash reserves.
That does not remove risk.
Low cash balances can limit flexibility, especially if operating expenses rise or market liquidity weakens. But it also does not automatically mean a company is insolvent.
The cleaner read is that BTCS was managing a balance sheet where most value remained tied to digital assets and DeFi positions.
DeFi Leverage Is Now A Public-Market Issue This is the broader point.
DeFi borrowing used to be mostly a wallet-level or protocol-level story. Now it can appear inside public-company filings. That means traditional investors need to understand terms like collateral, liquidation, protocol debt, staking, and on-chain credit exposure.
As more companies use Ethereum and DeFi infrastructure, these disclosures will matter more.
Investors will not only ask how many coins a company holds. They will ask whether those assets are borrowed against, staked, locked, lent, or exposed to smart-contract risk.
BTCS offers an early example of that shift.
What Comes Next The next filings will show whether BTCS continues reducing leverage or rebuilds DeFi exposure as market conditions improve.
If the company keeps lowering debt, investors may view the strategy as more conservative. If it increases borrowing again, the balance sheet may become more sensitive to Ethereum price swings and protocol conditions.
Either way, BTCS highlights an important trend.
Corporate crypto strategies are no longer simple reserve stories. Some companies are operating inside DeFi as active balance-sheet participants.
That creates opportunity, but it also creates risk that investors need to understand.
This article is based on BTCS Inc.’s Q2 2026 Form 10-Q filing and related company financial disclosures.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Vklady USDT na Aave V3 za 90 dní vzrostly o 525,7 mil. USD, protože poptávka po DeFi úvěrech znovu sílí. Aktivní úvěry dosáhly 2,5 mld. USD a Aave drží asi 63 % veškerého USDT v DeFi půjčování.
More than half a billion dollars in fresh USDT found its way into Aave V3 over the past three months, a sign that stablecoin demand in decentralized lending is running hot again. The $525.7 million inflow pushed USDT deposits on Aave V3’s Core market from $1.93 billion to approximately $3.03 billion between May and late July, representing a $1.1 billion total increase when accounting for the full deposit trajectory.
Borrowers absorbed the vast majority of the new supply, with $717 million of the inflows matched to active loans.
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The numbers behind the surge Active USDT loans on Aave V3 reached $2.5 billion in July, climbing $400 million in a single month. At one point, total inflows exceeded $600 million in just 11 days, a pace that forced the protocol’s governance to react in real time.
Aave’s community passed multiple proposals to raise USDT supply caps throughout 2026. One notable June governance vote pushed the ceiling to $3.48 billion after utilization rates repeatedly hit the 90% to 97% range.
Supply-side APY for USDT on Aave V3 hovered around 3.15% with roughly 90% utilization by late August. As of August 2026, Aave V3 accounted for approximately 63% of all USDT deployed across DeFi lending protocols.
What this means for the lending landscape The governance dynamics are worth watching closely. Supply cap increases sound routine, but each one represents a calculated risk decision. Higher caps mean more potential exposure if something goes wrong with USDT itself, whether that’s a depeg event, a regulatory action against Tether, or a liquidity crisis. The community’s willingness to keep raising those caps reflects a collective bet that USDT’s stability is now a settled question rather than an open one.
There’s also a concentration risk that cuts both ways. If Aave V3 holds 63% of DeFi’s USDT lending activity and something disrupts the protocol, whether through a smart contract vulnerability, a governance attack, or a regulatory clampdown, the ripple effects would be felt across the entire stablecoin ecosystem.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Circle’s euro-pegged stablecoin EURC has quietly amassed $76.6 million in deposits spread across 20 DeFi protocols. That’s not a massive number by USDC standards, but for a euro stablecoin operating in a market historically dominated by dollar-denominated assets, it represents a meaningful foothold.
The lion’s share of those deposits, roughly 70.9%, sits in Aave V3. That concentration tells you something about where the euro-denominated DeFi action is actually happening, and which protocol has managed to build the infrastructure that euro stablecoin users trust.
Aave V3’s outsized role Aave V3 holds approximately $42.5 million to $42.7 million in EURC supply based on visible protocol snapshots. That means a single lending protocol accounts for more than two-thirds of all EURC deployed in DeFi.
The remaining 29% of EURC deposits are distributed across 19 other venues, including liquidity provision and foreign exchange trading pairs across multiple protocols.
The bigger EURC picture The total circulating supply of EURC stands at approximately €410.6 million as of August 17, 2026. That means the $76.6 million sitting in DeFi protocols represents roughly 18-19% of the overall EURC supply depending on exchange rates.
Circle has positioned EURC as a fully reserved, 1:1 euro-pegged stablecoin with cash-equivalent redemptions. EURC currently lives across multiple blockchain networks: Ethereum, Base, Avalanche, Solana, and Stellar.
MiCA and the regulatory tailwind Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, commonly known as MiCA, has created a framework that specifically addresses stablecoin issuance in the EU. MiCA’s requirements around reserves, transparency, and licensing have raised the barrier to entry for anyone wanting to issue a euro stablecoin.
For the broader DeFi market, dollar stablecoins like USDC and USDT still dominate global DeFi activity by an enormous margin. But within the European market specifically, compliant euro stablecoins are carving out territory for users and businesses that need to denominate transactions in euros for tax, accounting, or operational reasons.
What this means for DeFi’s euro market When 71% of a stablecoin’s DeFi deposits sit in one protocol, any disruption to that protocol, whether technical, regulatory, or governance-related, would ripple through the entire EURC DeFi ecosystem. With EURC and USDC both issued by Circle and available across the same blockchain networks, the infrastructure also exists for on-chain forex trading between euros and dollars without touching centralized exchanges.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aave V4 přilákal XAUT za 8 milionů USD, zatímco vklady na Uniswap V3, Aave V3 a Morpho Blue ve stejném období klesly. Celkové vklady XAUT na Aave vzrostly zhruba o 91,7 % na 76,7 milionu USD.
Tether Gold (XAUT) deposits across decentralized finance have undergone a quiet but significant reshuffling over the past 90 days. Aave V4, the lending protocol’s newest iteration, pulled in $8M worth of the tokenized gold token, while deposits on Uniswap V3, Aave V3, and Morpho Blue all declined during the same window.
The bigger picture is even more striking. Total XAUT deposits on Aave climbed from roughly $40M in early June to $76.7M by mid-August, a gain of approximately 91.7%. That makes Aave the clear frontrunner for anyone looking to park their digital gold in a DeFi lending protocol.
Where the gold is flowing Aave V4 launched on March 30 with a Hub-and-Spoke liquidity model designed to consolidate deposits and improve capital efficiency. The architecture lets liquidity flow more efficiently between different asset pools rather than sitting idle in isolated markets.
XAUT deposits on Aave V4 sat at about $4.4M at the end of June, rose to $7M by the end of July, and continued climbing into August. That trajectory lines up with the broader $8M net gain over the 90-day period.
Meanwhile, older venues lost ground. Uniswap V3, which still accounts for the bulk of on-chain DEX liquidity for XAUT at roughly $16.5M total, saw its share of deposits shrink. Aave V3 and Morpho Blue also experienced outflows.
Why Aave V4 is winning the tokenized gold race On Aave V4, users can deposit XAUT as collateral and borrow stablecoins like USDT and USDC against it. For someone sitting on a gold-denominated position who needs stablecoin liquidity, Aave V4 offers a cleaner on-ramp than swapping the asset outright on a DEX and eating the slippage.
Uniswap V3 serves a fundamentally different purpose. Its XAUT pools provide trading liquidity rather than lending utility. The $16.5M in DEX liquidity is still important for price discovery and spot trading, but it doesn’t offer the yield or borrowing mechanics that attract longer-term depositors.
Tokenized gold finds its DeFi niche Tether issues each XAUT token backed by one troy ounce of gold held in Swiss vaults. The token gives holders exposure to gold’s spot price while maintaining the composability of an ERC-20 token.
The nearly 92% increase in Aave’s XAUT deposits over roughly ten weeks reflects growing comfort with using commodity-backed tokens as productive collateral rather than passive holdings.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ethereum za 20. srpna 2026 vyskočilo o 18 %, ale na Aave zůstává skryté riziko: 9 % pozic drží zhruba polovinu dluhu a průměrný health factor je jen 1,06.
The biggest single day ETH move in two years did not trigger the liquidation cascade. But the concentrated staking correlation trade on Aave is one bad day from unwinding.
Summary
Ethereum surged approximately 18% on Aug. 20, 2026, its strongest single day move since March 2024, climbing from roughly $1,920 to above $2,270 as trading volume jumped 402%. More than $1 billion in Ethereum short positions were liquidated across derivatives markets during the rally, contributing to a broader $3 billion crypto liquidation event. On Aave, the largest decentralized lending protocol with roughly $12.2 billion in total value locked, just 9% of positions carry approximately half of the platform’s total debt. These concentrated positions are built around a leveraged Ethereum staking correlation trade, using WETH debt against liquid staking collateral like weETH (42% of collateral), rsETH, and wstETH, with average health factors near 1.06 and debt to equity ratios near 10.7 times. An 8% to 9% discount in liquid staking wrapper prices relative to ETH could trigger on chain liquidations across hundreds of accounts, creating a cascade risk that the Aug. 20 rally obscured but did not eliminate. The number that matters from Aug. 20 is not 18%. It is 1.06.
Ethereum’s single day gain of roughly 18% dominated the headlines. Trading volume surged 402%. More than $1 billion in short positions were liquidated. The altcoin market cap crossed $1 trillion. By every surface metric, it was one of the strongest days for Ethereum in two years.
But underneath the rally, a structural vulnerability in decentralized lending sat untouched. On Aave, 9% of positions carry roughly half the protocol’s total debt. Those positions run at an average health factor of 1.06, a margin of safety so thin that an 8% to 9% move in the wrong direction could trigger a liquidation cascade on chain.
The rally did not test that vulnerability because ETH moved higher, not lower. The concentrated positions survived. But surviving is not the same as being safe.
The anatomy of the correlation trade To understand the risk, start with the trade itself.
Ethereum’s transition to proof of stake created a new asset class: liquid staking tokens. When a user stakes ETH through a protocol like Lido, Rocket Pool, or EtherFi, they receive a derivative token (wstETH, rETH, or weETH) that represents their staked position. These tokens are designed to trade at or near a 1:1 ratio with ETH, accruing staking rewards over time.
The correlation trade exploits the tight relationship between these wrapper tokens and ETH itself. A trader deposits liquid staking tokens as collateral on Aave, borrows WETH against them, stakes the borrowed WETH to create more liquid staking tokens, and repeats. Each loop adds leverage. The profit comes from the staking yield, which compounds with each layer of recursion.
On paper, the trade appears low risk. The collateral (liquid staking tokens) is correlated with the debt (WETH). As long as the wrapper tokens maintain their peg to ETH, the health factor remains stable. The borrower earns staking yield on every layer of collateral while paying borrowing costs on the WETH debt.
In practice, the risk is concentrated in the peg itself.
Where the leverage sits The data on Aave’s concentrated positions is specific enough to be alarming.
Just 9% of Aave positions hold approximately half the protocol’s total debt. The debt weighted loan to value across this cohort runs near 90%. Their average health factor sits at 1.06. Their debt to equity ratio is approximately 10.7 times.
The collateral backing these loans tells the story. Ethereum staking and restaking wrappers, including weETH, rsETH, and wstETH, make up about 66.2% of the collateral. weETH alone accounts for roughly 42%. WETH makes up about 73% of the group’s total debt.
Total stablecoins supplied on Aave stand at $8.98 billion, with $7.40 billion borrowed, producing a utilization rate of 82.46%. The protocol’s total value locked is approximately $12.2 billion.
The concentration is remarkable. A small number of highly leveraged positions, all running the same fundamental trade, hold enough debt to create systemic consequences if they unwind simultaneously.
What a depeg would look like A health factor of 1.06 means the collateral is worth 6% more than the minimum required to avoid liquidation. For these positions, that translates to a buffer of roughly 8% to 9% in wrapper discount before liquidations begin.
A wrapper discount occurs when a liquid staking token trades below its expected value relative to ETH. This can happen for several reasons: a rush to exit staking positions, a smart contract vulnerability in the staking protocol, a governance failure, or simply a market wide liquidity crunch that drives sellers to accept below peg prices.
Aave learned this lesson in March 2026. A stale risk oracle parameter led to approximately $26 to $27 million in wstETH liquidations. The incident was contained because it affected a single collateral type and the parameter was corrected quickly. But it revealed how oracle latency could interact with concentrated positions to produce outsized losses.
A broader depeg scenario would unfold differently. If weETH, which backs 42% of the concentrated cohort’s collateral, were to trade at a 10% discount to ETH, the health factors on hundreds of accounts would drop below 1.0 simultaneously. Aave’s liquidation mechanism would activate, selling wrapper tokens into a market that is already discounting them. The selling pressure from liquidations would widen the discount, triggering more liquidations.
This is the same feedback loop that operates in centralized derivatives markets during a short squeeze, but in reverse and on chain. Instead of forced buying pushing prices higher, forced selling pushes prices lower. And because the liquidated collateral is the same asset that is being discounted, the cascade feeds on itself.
JUST IN: Aave founder Stani Kulechov announces he is personally contributing 5,000 ETH to DeFi United as the team works nonstop to deliver the best outcome for users pic.twitter.com/CHhe0GlLFu
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 24, 2026 Why the rally masked the risk Ethereum’s 18% surge on Aug. 20 had the opposite effect on the concentrated Aave positions. Higher ETH prices improved health factors across the board. Wrapper tokens rallied in line with ETH, maintaining their pegs. The positions that sit at 1.06 health factor at current prices were temporarily safer.
But the rally also encouraged behavior that makes the eventual risk worse. When ETH prices rise, staking yields become more attractive in dollar terms. Traders have an incentive to add more layers of recursion to the correlation trade, increasing leverage. If the concentrated cohort added positions during or after the rally, the health factors may have returned to the same 1.06 level at higher absolute prices, meaning the dollar value at risk has increased even though the percentage buffer remains the same.
DeFi lending protocols do not have circuit breakers. There is no exchange operator to halt trading during extreme volatility. There is no margin call that gives a borrower time to add collateral. When the health factor drops below 1.0, liquidation is automatic and immediate. The speed of the cascade is limited only by block time and gas availability.
The rally was driven by macro catalysts including Treasury buybacks and a White House summit. If those catalysts fade and ETH retraces, the concentrated positions will be the first to feel the pressure.
The staking yield illusion The correlation trade is popular because the math looks compelling in normal conditions. Staking yields on Ethereum currently range from 3% to 5% annualized, depending on the protocol. At 10 times leverage, the effective yield on equity approaches 30% to 50% annualized, minus borrowing costs.
But this calculation assumes the wrapper peg holds perfectly. It assumes liquidity in the wrapper market remains sufficient to absorb large sales without price impact. And it assumes that no exogenous shock, whether a smart contract exploit, a regulatory action against a staking provider, or a sudden spike in ETH volatility, disrupts the correlation.
Each of these assumptions has been violated at least once in the history of liquid staking tokens. Lido’s stETH traded at a 7% discount to ETH during the Terra/Luna collapse in June 2022. Rocket Pool’s rETH briefly dipped below peg during the FTX contagion in November 2022. These dislocations were temporary, but they occurred during conditions when leveraged positions on the same tokens would have been liquidated.
The August 2026 rally created an opportunity for traders to take on more of this risk at what feel like higher prices and wider margins. Whether those margins are real or illusory depends entirely on what happens next.
Aave’s risk management response Aave is not unaware of the concentration risk. The protocol’s governance forum has discussed parameter adjustments to address the wstETH/weETH correlation trade, including reducing the loan to value ratio in E mode (the enhanced efficiency mode that allows higher leverage for correlated assets) and increasing liquidation incentives to attract faster liquidator participation during stress events.
The March 2026 incident, in which a stale oracle parameter caused $26 to $27 million in unintended liquidations, prompted a review of oracle update frequencies and fallback mechanisms. The protocol now runs multiple oracle sources for major collateral types.
But governance adjustments move slowly in DeFi. Proposals must pass through community discussion, snapshot votes, and on chain execution. The concentrated positions exist now. A parameter change that takes two weeks to implement offers no protection against a depeg event that unfolds in two hours.
The broader DeFi ecosystem faces the same challenge. Compound, Morpho, and other lending protocols have varying degrees of exposure to the same liquid staking correlation trade. If a depeg event triggers liquidations on Aave, the selling pressure would affect wrapper prices across all platforms simultaneously. Institutional custodians watching from the sidelines would have reason to reconsider their DeFi exposure calculations.
What to watch Wrapper discount thresholds. Track the price of weETH, wstETH, and rsETH relative to ETH on DEX aggregators. Any sustained discount above 3% is a warning sign. A discount above 8% would begin triggering liquidations on the concentrated Aave positions. Aave E mode parameter proposals. Governance proposals to reduce the loan to value ceiling in E mode for liquid staking collateral would force the concentrated cohort to reduce leverage. Track the Aave governance forum and snapshot voting page. ETH volatility after the rally. The 18% move was driven by macro catalysts. If those catalysts fade and ETH retraces, the concentrated positions will be tested. A 15% decline from current levels would bring ETH back to the pre rally range near $1,920, which could stress wrapper pegs. Liquidation bot capacity. On chain liquidation depends on bots that monitor health factors and submit liquidation transactions. If gas prices spike during a cascade, slower bots may fail to participate, reducing liquidation efficiency and increasing bad debt risk. Aave’s total stablecoin utilization rate. At 82.46%, utilization is already high. If it climbs above 90%, withdrawal liquidity shrinks and the protocol’s ability to absorb a cascade deteriorates. How much of Aave’s debt is concentrated in a small number of positions? Approximately 9% of Aave positions carry roughly half of the protocol’s total debt. These positions run at an average health factor of 1.06 with debt to equity ratios near 10.7 times.
What is the Ethereum staking correlation trade? Traders deposit liquid staking tokens (weETH, wstETH, rsETH) as collateral on Aave, borrow WETH against them, stake the borrowed WETH to create more liquid staking tokens, and repeat. Each loop increases leverage and staking yield exposure.
What would trigger liquidations on these positions? An 8% to 9% discount in liquid staking wrapper prices relative to ETH would push health factors below 1.0, triggering automatic on chain liquidations. A 10% depeg could flip hundreds of accounts below the danger threshold simultaneously.
Has a liquid staking depeg happened before? Yes. Lido’s stETH traded at a 7% discount during the Terra/Luna collapse in June 2022. Rocket Pool’s rETH briefly dipped below peg during the FTX contagion in November 2022. Both dislocations were temporary but would have triggered liquidations on leveraged positions.
What is Aave’s total value locked? Aave holds approximately $12.2 billion in total value locked as of August 2026, with $8.98 billion in stablecoins supplied and $7.40 billion borrowed, producing a utilization rate of 82.46%.
Why did the March 2026 Aave incident happen? A stale risk oracle parameter led to approximately $26 to $27 million in wstETH liquidations. The incident highlighted how oracle latency can interact with concentrated positions to produce unintended losses.
Does Aave have circuit breakers? No. DeFi lending protocols do not have the ability to halt trading or pause liquidations during extreme volatility. When a health factor drops below 1.0, liquidation is automatic and limited only by block time and gas availability.
How does Ethereum’s 18% rally affect the concentration risk? The rally temporarily improved health factors by pushing collateral values higher. However, it may also have encouraged traders to add leverage, potentially returning health factors to the same tight 1.06 level at higher dollar values, increasing the absolute amount at risk. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Cryptocurrency markets and DeFi protocols carry substantial risk, including the risk of total loss. Always conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Published Aug. 21, 2026.
Aave Horizon má podle návrhu governance zařadit fond HINC od Neuberger Berman a Securitize jako supply-only kolaterál. Držitelé by proti němu mohli půjčovat stablecoiny včetně USDC, GHO a RLUSD.
Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, announced a governance proposal to bring the Neuberger Securitize High Income Tokenized Fund, known as HINC, onto Aave Horizon as supply-only collateral. Neuberger Berman, the asset manager behind the fund, oversees roughly $230 billion in assets under management.
What HINC brings to the table HINC is a high-yield fixed-income strategy fund that invests primarily in high-yield corporate bonds, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and bank loans. The fund requires a minimum investment of $100,000, which signals this isn’t aimed at retail participants. It’s built for qualified, institutional users who want exposure to below-investment-grade credit products while tapping into onchain borrowing.
If the Aave governance proposal passes, HINC holders would be able to borrow stablecoins including USDC, GHO, and RLUSD against their fund positions. That’s a meaningful expansion of what’s available as collateral on Aave Horizon, which until now has focused more on treasuries and investment-grade instruments.
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Securitize handles the tokenization and infrastructure for HINC. The firm has previously worked with VanEck on its VBILL tokenized treasury fund.
Neuberger Berman itself serves as subadvisor on the fund. The firm is part of a larger group managing approximately $567 billion as of March 2026.
Why Aave Horizon matters Aave Horizon is an institutional-grade lending protocol built on Ethereum, specifically designed for qualified users to borrow stablecoins against tokenized real-world assets. The platform already has hundreds of millions in market size. The onboarding of HINC would be Aave Horizon’s first below-investment-grade credit asset, moving the platform beyond the safer, more conservative corner of fixed income and into territory where yields are higher but so are the risks.
HINC’s multi-chain integration adds another layer to the story. The fund is structured to operate across Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Sui, which gives institutional participants flexibility in choosing their preferred blockchain infrastructure.
The bigger picture for tokenized RWAs The supply-only designation for HINC is worth noting. Collateral marked as supply-only can be deposited to earn yield or posted as collateral for borrowing, but it cannot itself be borrowed by other users. That constraint limits certain forms of leverage and rehypothecation, which is a sensible guardrail for a fund investing in below-investment-grade instruments.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aave zvažuje ukončení veřejného bug bounty programu pro své nasazení na Aptosu a ukončení role Cantiny jako poskytovatele. O rozhodnutí musí hlasovat správa.
18 August 2026 | 00:57 Aave is considering ending the public bug bounty for its Aptos deployment. The request is separate from, but connected to, plans for the lending market.
Key Takeaways Aave is reviewing the ongoing security setup around its Aptos deployment. The Aptos version of Aave V3 uses Move and carries a separate technical scope. A different governance proposal covers lending activity and possible limits on new use. July’s market snapshot showed sharply lower liquidity and minimal revenue. Both measures require governance approval before they affect the protocol. Aave’s latest ARFC asks the DAO to sunset the bug-bounty program for Aave V3 on Aptos and end Cantina’s role as its provider.
A bug bounty pays independent researchers for valid vulnerability reports. The program provides an ongoing route for security findings after a product goes live.
The request arrives while Aave is separately debating the future of its Aptos lending market. Those discussions cover the market itself and the services that support it.
Two governance requests cover different parts of Aptos The Aptos discussion involves two Aave proposals.
The market proposal: A July ARFC on low-adoption markets recommends limiting new use of Aave V3 on Aptos while current positions are reduced over time. The bounty proposal: The newer ARFC asks whether Aave should continue funding an Aptos-only bug bounty through Cantina. The market proposal deals with deposits, borrowing and available liquidity. The bounty proposal covers rewards for researchers who report security issues.
Both requests are awaiting governance approval. The protocol configuration remains unchanged unless a later governance action implements either measure.
Why Aptos had a dedicated bounty Aave launched on Aptos with a separate version of V3. Aptos uses Move, while Ethereum smart contracts commonly use Solidity.
According to Aave’s launch announcement, the Move-based deployment went through audits, a Cantina mainnet security competition and a bounty offering up to 500,000 GHO, Aave’s stablecoin.
Each measure serves a different purpose:
Audits examine code before or around a launch. Security competitions give researchers a set period to test a project. Bug bounties reward valid reports while the program remains open. Cantina’s published Aptos scope covered Move modules, frontend components, APIs and deployment configuration. The program covered the full Aptos product setup.
Aave outlined this arrangement in its 2026 bounty-program restructuring proposal, which assigned Aave V3 on Aptos to Cantina while other Aave products used different providers.
Aptos market activity had already fallen The July market proposal described a sharp decline in Aptos activity.
At the time of publication, it estimated about $1.7 million in supplied assets and roughly $719,000 in debt. Available liquidity had fallen from around $18 million to $1 million over the previous six months, while quarterly revenue was below $1,000.
These figures reflect the market conditions reported in July. The proposal recommended freezing Aptos reserves and setting supply and borrow caps to one. Approval would block meaningful new deposits and borrowing while existing suppliers and borrowers reduce their positions.
The document leaves the bounty program’s costs undisclosed, preventing a direct calculation between that expense and the market’s decline. The lower level of activity still provides the backdrop for Aave’s review of a dedicated Aptos security program.
What the proposals mean for users and researchers For Aave users The bounty proposal affects the reward program for outside researchers. Lending parameters, withdrawal access and borrowing conditions remain tied to the live protocol configuration and any separately approved market changes.
Users with an Aptos position should follow the market proposal and later governance decisions. Those measures would determine the timetable and limits for activity on Aave V3.
For security researchers Eligibility follows the active terms published by Aave and Cantina. The ARFC asks to sunset the program, while the published scope and any approved closure terms determine which reports qualify for a reward.
Closing the bounty would close this public reporting and reward route for Aave V3 on Aptos.
The two Aptos plans now move together Aave Labs recorded the release of Aave V3 on Aptos in its June 2025 development update. The launch introduced Aave’s first deployment outside Ethereum-compatible networks and required its own codebase and security setup.
Approval of both proposals would narrow Aave’s Aptos operations. The market would admit less new lending activity, and the dedicated public bounty through Cantina would close.
The decisions concern Aave’s own Aptos deployment, its activity levels and the operating work required to maintain it.
Author
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
Aave V3 nyní ovládá více než 50 % všech tokenizovaného zlata v DeFi půjčování. Kombinované zajištění PAXG a XAUT na Aave V3 a Morpho činilo zhruba 63 milionů USD.
Aave V3 now controls over 50% of all tokenized gold deposited across decentralized finance lending protocols.
The protocol’s dominance in this niche reflects a broader shift in how DeFi users think about collateral. Gold-backed tokens like PAXG (Pax Gold) and XAUT (Tether Gold) offer something most crypto assets cannot: relative price stability anchored to a physical commodity.
How Aave cornered the gold market
PAXG has been accepted as collateral on Aave V3’s Ethereum deployment since the protocol launched, giving users the ability to borrow stablecoins against their tokenized gold holdings.
Governance proposals to integrate XAUT, Tether’s gold token, into the core instance of Aave V3 began circulating in mid-2025. Adding a second major gold token expanded the protocol’s appeal to a wider pool of users who might prefer one issuer over another.
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Aave V3’s isolation mode, a feature introduced back in 2022, played a key role in making this possible. Isolation mode lets the protocol onboard newer or less liquid assets with tighter risk parameters, essentially ring-fencing potential problems before they can spread.
That cautious engineering paid off during a market stress event in March 2026, when Aave V3 successfully processed liquidation clusters for XAUT without significant disruption.
The numbers tell two stories at once
Combined collateral for PAXG and XAUT on Aave V3 and Morpho sat at approximately $63 million as of early-to-mid 2026. That is a meaningful figure for a single protocol category, but it also reveals how early this market still is.
The total market capitalization for PAXG and XAUT combined runs roughly $4.2 billion. That means only about 1.5% of all tokenized gold is actively deployed as collateral on major DeFi platforms.
Real-world assets meet DeFi lending
But the integration is not without friction. Tokenized gold requires trust in the issuer’s reserves, custody arrangements, and audit processes. PAXG is backed by London Good Delivery gold bars held in Brinks vaults, while XAUT is backed by gold stored in Swiss vaults. Both issuers publish attestations, but the trust model is fundamentally different from holding a purely decentralized asset like ETH.
What to watch from here
The 1.5% utilization rate is the number that matters most going forward. Even moving to 5% utilization of the $4.2 billion market cap would mean roughly $210 million in deployed collateral, more than triple the current level.
Competitors will also matter. Morpho already appears alongside Aave in the collateral data, and other lending protocols will likely look at Aave’s market share in this segment as an invitation to compete.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ether.fi spustila dosud největší upgrade své neúschovné „neobank“ aplikace: přidala tokenizované akcie a kovy, dedikovanou Aave V4 instanci na Optimism pro půjčky a programatické zpětné odkupy ETHFI.
Ether.fi went live this week with the biggest upgrade yet to its non-custodial “neobank” app, adding tokenized stock and metals trading, a dedicated Aave lending market for portfolio-backed borrowing, and programmatic buybacks of its ETHFI governance token, as the protocol pushes to become a full alternative to traditional banking rather than a purely DeFi-focused product.
What’s New in the “Summer” Release The centerpiece of the update is a new integration with xStocks that lets eligible users trade tokenized equities and metals alongside their crypto holdings, all held in self-custodial vaults with social recovery features rather than on a centralized exchange. Tokenized stock trading will not be available in the United States or certain other markets at launch, reflecting the regulatory patchwork still surrounding tokenized securities.
On the lending side, ether.fi deployed a dedicated Aave V4 instance on Optimism, giving users a way to borrow against their entire portfolio at rates currently around 4% and spend the proceeds directly through the ether.fi Cash card. The company says the new credit backend already carries $22 million in active borrowing, with a stated target of $500 million in lending capacity by 2027. Card users get 3% cash back on purchases, along with new fiat on- and off-ramps covering more than 30 currencies and payment methods, including Apple Pay and Cash App.
Why It Matters Ether.fi’s Cash card business already serves roughly 70,000 cardholders, giving the protocol a meaningful existing user base to migrate onto the expanded platform rather than starting a banking-style product from zero. Bundling trading, borrowing, and spending into one non-custodial app is also a bet that crypto-native infrastructure can compete directly with traditional neobanks on convenience, not just on yield.
The release adds a new revenue-linked mechanism for ETHFI holders too: the update introduces programmatic buybacks of the token, funded through protocol activity, though ether.fi hasn’t disclosed a fixed schedule or volume for the purchases. Combined with the dedicated Aave market’s borrowing activity, the update gives ETHFI a more direct link to the platform’s usage than it had before.
What This Means for the Days Ahead Whether ether.fi’s push into tokenized stocks and full-portfolio lending gains real traction will likely hinge on how quickly regulatory clarity develops in markets where the product remains restricted, the US chief among them. In the meantime, growth in the new Aave market’s borrowing volume and card adoption numbers will be the clearest signals of whether the “Summer” release is converting existing DeFi users into daily active spenders.
AUTHOR
Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.
Aave V4 has crossed $400 million in total deposits, marking a new all-time high for the protocol version that only went live on mainnet a few months ago.
The milestone lands shortly after Aave V4 recorded $350 million in deposits on August 3, 2026, a figure publicly acknowledged by Aave founder Stani Kulechov as a stepping stone toward the $400M threshold now crossed.
From zero to $400M in under a year
The Aave DAO approved the V4 activation on May 4, 2026, following an extended testnet period. Deposits sat near $50 million in early May, climbed to roughly $100 million by June, and pushed into the $200M-$300M range between late June and July before breaking $350M at the start of August.
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As of mid-August 2026, V4’s total value locked sat in the $217M-$225M range, primarily concentrated on Ethereum. The gap between that TVL figure and the $400M deposit headline reflects the difference between net locked capital and gross deposits flowing through the system.
V4’s TVL grew roughly 26-36% over a single 30-day period leading into mid-August.
What V4 actually changes
V4 is not a cosmetic upgrade. The core architectural shift is a move to what Aave calls a Liquidity Hub and Borrow Spokes model, essentially a hub-and-spoke design where liquidity pools are managed centrally while individual borrowing markets branch off as spokes. Each spoke can be configured independently, meaning a problem in one lending market does not automatically contaminate others.
V4 also introduces native support for real-world assets alongside traditional crypto lending, a capability that significantly expands Aave’s potential user base beyond on-chain native borrowers and into institutional participants who need compliant exposure to tokenized assets.
V3 continues to operate in parallel with V4 rather than being shut down. As of April 2026, V3 carried roughly $19.4 billion in TVL across chains.
Why this matters beyond the headline number
For AAVE token holders, deposit growth translates into fee generation and protocol revenue, which flows back through governance-controlled mechanisms. A protocol sitting at $400M in deposits on V4 while simultaneously running $19.4B on V3 is generating revenue from both systems simultaneously, a dual-engine structure that gives the DAO significant flexibility on how it manages the V3-to-V4 transition timeline.
Aave’s decision to run V3 and V4 in parallel rather than forcing a cutover lets users migrate at their own pace rather than under deadline pressure.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
ether.fi do aplikace přidává tokenizované akcie, nové fiat převody a půjčky kryté přes Aave. Současně zavádí programové odkupy ETHFI financované ze všech příjmů.
The Summer release lands a week after the protocol pulled restaking out of weETH. The release also introduces programmatic ETHFI buybacks funded from every revenue line.
ether.fi is adding tokenized stock trading, portfolio-wide borrowing and global fiat transfers to its app, moving the liquid staking protocol further into retail banking products. The company announced the changes Thursday as part of what it calls its Summer release.
The launch continues a shift ether.fi has been making all year. The protocol removed restaking from weETH last week, leaving less than 1% of its assets restaked with EigenLayer, and has spent 2026 building the card, credit and payments stack it first described as a "defibank" in April 2025.
Staking is still almost all of the balance sheet. ether.fi's staking arm holds $3.34 billion, DefiLlama data shows. Its Optimism borrowing market holds $160.2 million against $23.3 million of active loans, up 11.8% over 30 days, and the vault backing the Cash card holds $124.5 million.
"Our goal is to replace the traditional bank for most users and give them tools and benefits that were previously available only to institutions and high-net-worth individuals," ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze said in a statement.
Borrowing Against EverythingThe release says an integrated Aave market on Optimism lets users borrow against their entire portfolio at rates "currently around 4%" to spend on the Cash card or buy other assets. USDC on Aave v3 Optimism carries a borrow rate of 3.82%, Aavescan data shows.
The dedicated Aave instance ether.fi has asked for is still in governance. ether.fi filed a temp check on July 1 to deploy an Aave V4 whitelabel instance on OP Mainnet that it would operate end-to-end, and it passed. An ARFC followed on July 14, setting out next steps that require an AIP vote for final confirmation.
Terms in the proposal give Aave's DAO 20% of instance revenue, which ether.fi projects at $1 million to $1.2 million a year, with up to $175 million in assets at launch and a $500 million target by year-end. Delegates posting as Abel189 and MconnectDAO gave conditional support on July 26. MconnectDAO cited reputational risk to the DAO, collateral factors of up to 95% on complex collateral types, and limited onchain accountability for the independent risk admin, and asked for a documented performance review before license renewal.
The ARFC states that ether.fi Cash currently runs on a custom, non-pooled borrow market on OP Mainnet, with about $25 million in active borrows across more than 16 collateral assets. The release does not say whether the market now live in the app is that one, the existing Aave v3 deployment, or the instance still in governance.
Kraken Owns The StocksTokenized equities in the app come through xStocks, alongside metals and crypto assets, with holdings kept in an ether.fi vault protected by social recovery.
xStocks is issued by Backed Assets (JE) Limited and distributed through Payward entities. Kraken acquired Backed Finance in December 2025. Its documentation lists availability on "Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Mantle, TON, Ink, and other EVM-compatible networks," without naming Optimism, where ether.fi's card and credit products settle. xStocks passed $500 million in onchain volume in August 2025, a figure analysts at the time called symbolic against the volumes routinely cleared on Solana decentralized exchanges.
Stock and metals trading is not available in the United States and certain other markets, according to the release. Everything else ships to all users Thursday.
Thirty Currencies, Named AccountsNew on- and off-ramps support more than 30 additional currencies and payment methods including Cash App, Apple Pay and Interac, with named accounts for deposits. The Cash card pays 3% back on purchases at every tier, with monthly caps of $2,000 for Core, $10,000 for Luxe and $50,000 for Pinnacle, plus an invite-only VIP tier, per ether.fi's terms. ATM withdrawals carry a 2% fee at every tier.
Half A Million Membersether.fi describes itself as the first and largest non-custodial crypto neobank, with more than half a million members and a $2 billion annual transaction run-rate.
Onchain data supports part of that. ether.fi's card has settled $723.4 million across 9.07 million transactions and 98,683 addresses since November 2024, Paymentscan shows, with July setting a record at $100.3 million, or about 13% of the $748.7 million in sector-wide card volume Paymentscan tracked that month. That pace annualizes to roughly $1.2 billion, below the $2 billion the company cites. The gap would close if the run-rate counts swaps, deposits and withdrawals alongside card spending.
ether.fi last disclosed user figures in February 2026, when it put accounts at 300,000 and active cards at 70,000 and total spending since launch at $265 million. Paymentscan publishes no custodial classification, and the "largest non-custodial" ranking is ether.fi's own.
Buybacks Written Into ContractsThe release introduces programmatic ETHFI buybacks written into protocol contracts and funded from every product and revenue line. ether.fi has run buyback programs since 2024, including a withdrawal-revenue program approved in April 2025, after which the token doubled the following month, and a $50 million treasury program approved in November 2025 that triggers only while ETHFI trades below $3. Current documentation describes weekly buybacks from eETH withdrawal fees and monthly buybacks from Stake, Liquid and Cash revenue, with proceeds going to sETHFI holders.
ETHFI trades at $0.37, down 3.2% over 24 hours and up 1.3% on the week, with a market capitalization of $361.8 million, CoinGecko data shows. The token is 95.6% below its March 2024 high of $8.53. Ether trades at $1,888.
ether.fi is hosting an analyst call on the release Thursday at 10 a.m. ET.
AI audit Aave V3 a V4 nenašel žádný potvrzený problém kategorie Critical ani High; všech 71 zjištění bylo po manuální kontrole klasifikováno jen jako Low nebo Informational.
Aave has operated across four protocol generations since 2020, and its security program has grown with each one. Manual audits, formal verification, invariant testing, fuzzing, public contests, and a standing bug bounty each entered the process as they proved their worth, and Aave Labs keeps testing newer methods as they mature.
Aave V4 underwent more than 340 days of cumulative security review before the scans outlined below happened, including manual audits, formal verification, invariant testing, fuzzing, and a six-week public contest. While Aave V3 has been hardened by years of production operation and successive audits on top of that.
In Security By Design: Aave V4, Aave Labs committed to evaluating AI-powered auditing as a complementary layer of the security program, and to maturing AI scanning for future releases. Delivering on that, we ran three AI security tools against Aave V3 and Aave V4, and are reporting the findings here.
Across 71 findings, no Critical or High severity issue was confirmed in either protocol. Every finding that survived manual validation is of Low or Informational severity, and at no point were users or their funds at risk from any issues mentioned.
How Deep the Existing Tests Run
Beyond vulnerability scanning, one tool ran mutation testing against four core V4 contracts, Hub, Spoke, TreasurySpoke, and AaveOracle, injecting 304 deliberate code mutations to measure whether Aave's own test suites would catch them.
ContractsMutationsKilled by existing testsInconclusive (suite timeout)Hub1511429Spoke / TreasurySpoke / AaveOracle15312924Total30427133
Existing tests killed 271 mutations outright, and no mutation was shown to survive. The remaining 33 returned inconclusive because the suites timed out rather than because a mutation slipped through, and work is ongoing to speed those suites up. Coverage measures which lines a test suite touches. Mutation testing measures whether it would notice those lines being wrong.
Approach
Each tool uses a different methodology, so the codebases were probed from genuinely different angles rather than through three variations of the same scan. Scans ran against pinned commits of the production repositories, covering the full src trees, and where supported the tools received the same context human auditors work from, including the V4 threat model and prior audit reports.
Rather than taking any verdict on faith, Aave Labs manually reviewed every finding against the code and classified each as valid, false positive, duplicate, or by design, using the same triage discipline applied to audit and contest submissions.
ToolMethodologySherlock AIAgentic AI audit runs, supplied with the V4 threat model and prior audit reports as contextOctaneAutomated vulnerability analysis with per-finding exploit scenarios, severity and likelihood reasoning, and proposed fixesOlympixAI vulnerability discovery (BugPocer) with runnable Foundry proof-of-concept generation for each reported true positive, plus mutation testing of the V4 test suites
Results
ToolCodebaseFindings surfacedValid after manual reviewSeverity of valid findingsTool AAave V495¹LowTool AAave V3138²LowTool BAave V4181InformationalTool BAave V311³LowTool CAave V4130⁴—Tool CAave V3175⁵LowTotal7120All Low / Informational
Results are anonymized per tool and presented in randomized order. This review was run to strengthen the protocol's security posture rather than to benchmark vendors against one another, and the aggregate outcome is what matters most for this analysis.
¹ Includes one issue previously reported and paid through the bug bounty program.
² Includes three findings on deprecated rewards contracts.
³ On a deprecated rewards contract no longer in use.
⁴ This tool's V4 report additionally lists four low and informational warnings covering operational edge cases with no security impact.
⁵ Three of the five confirmed only on deprecated or unused contracts. Six additional low and informational warnings cover view-only or far-future edge cases.
Several of the 20 validated findings were already known through existing processes such as the bug bounty program, which confirms the tools find real issues while also confirming those processes caught them first. A meaningful share affects deprecated code, and the rest are missing sanity checks in governance configuration paths, reachable only by trusted roles and failing safe by reverting, or view-function edge cases with no effect on protocol state. A small number of genuinely new items surfaced, all Low or Informational, each tracked and addressed where remediation is warranted.
A few findings arrived rated Critical or High, and validation confirmed every one as a false positive. Reading Aave correctly requires understanding its trust model, which is what human review contributes to a scan.
Where AI Helps Today
The review also covered periphery repositories including GHO, a.DI, aave-helpers, and the swap adapters, where hit rates ran materially higher than on the heavily audited V3 and V4 core. Precision was highest where prior scrutiny was lowest, which is consistent with deeply hardened core codebases and points to where AI tooling adds the most leverage today.
Even in the best runs, roughly half of the surfaced findings validated as real behavior, which places AI scanning as an early-stage layer alongside expert review. Human triage remains essential for separating signal from noise and assigning realistic severity under the protocol's trust model.
Going Forward
Aave Labs will keep working with leading teams in AI security tooling and run further AI-assisted reviews as those tools mature. We gave each vendor detailed feedback on false-positive patterns, duplicate reporting, and scoping, and the best-performing tools will be integrated into internal workflows so that scanning runs alongside development rather than only at release milestones. The methods listed above remain the foundation of the protocol's security posture, and AI scanning strengthens that stack without displacing any layer of it.
We will keep publishing results like these, including the ones less flattering than this set. Billions of dollars in user funds sit across DeFi, and the security of any one protocol raises or lowers the floor for all of them.
Thanks to the Sherlock, Octane, and Olympix teams for their collaboration and their responsiveness to feedback. Their work benefits Aave and the broader effort to make AI a dependable part of smart contract security.
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan říká, že krypto vstupuje do éry, kdy se hodnota projektů víc posuzuje podle tržeb a jejich návratu držitelům tokenů. Hyperliquid, Uniswap i Aave už propojují poplatky s buybacky a burny.
TLDR: Hyperliquid generated over $800M in annual revenue, with about 99% of certain fees used to buy HYPE. Uniswap’s UNIfication activated protocol fees and included a one-time treasury burn of 100M UNI tokens. Aave spent about $42M buying over 205,000 AAVE in 10 months, equal to roughly 1.28% of total supply. Aave’s January 2026 revenue fell to $7.95M from $13.5M, prompting a proposal to cut annual buybacks to $30M. Crypto markets are increasingly being judged by a metric familiar to traditional businesses: how much revenue they generate and return to asset holders. Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said in an Aug. 12 memo that this shift is weakening a long-running criticism of digital assets.
Historically, many networks could attract users, generate fees, and process billions in activity without creating direct economic benefits for native token holders. That model is changing as major protocols adopt buybacks, burns, and other mechanisms linking platform revenue with token economics.
Hougan’s argument does not equate crypto tokens with stocks. Instead, it highlights a clearer connection between protocol activity and token demand.
Hyperliquid and Uniswap Turn Protocol Fees Into Token Demand Hyperliquid provides the clearest example of the revenue model highlighted by Matt Hougan. Bitwise said the decentralized trading network generated more than $800 million in revenue last year.
The protocol directs roughly 99% of certain fee revenue toward purchasing HYPE, creating recurring token demand from trading activity. DefiLlama currently estimates Hyperliquid’s trailing-year revenue rate near $750 million, while monthly perpetual-futures volume recently reached about $190 billion.
The mechanism creates a measurable relationship between usage, fees, and token purchases. Instead of growth remaining separate from token economics, platform activity directly funds demand for HYPE through market purchases.
Uniswap has also strengthened that connection through its “UNIfication” overhaul. The governance proposal activated protocol fees and created a structure allowing collected fees to fund UNI burns.
It also included a one-time 100 million UNI treasury burn. That adjustment was significant as Uniswap had processed roughly $4 trillion in cumulative volume before the proposal was introduced. Previously, that activity did not produce a comparable direct value-accrual mechanism for UNI holders.
Aave Shows Why Revenue Alone Cannot Guarantee Token Value Meanwhile, Aave demonstrates the appeal and limits of revenue-based token analysis. The Aave DAO launched its buyback program in April 2025 and spent about $42 million purchasing more than 205,000 AAVE.
Those purchases represented approximately 1.28% of total token supply during the program’s first 10 months. However, a later proposal sought to reduce the annual buyback budget from $50 million to $30 million.
The proposal followed a drop in January 2026 revenue to $7.95 million from $13.5 million one year earlier. Aave then paused buybacks on April 19 after the rsETH incident to preserve treasury flexibility.
That decision showed why investors cannot treat protocol revenue as guaranteed token-holder cash flow. Governance decisions, security events, operating expenses, and treasury needs affect how much economic value reaches holders.
Regulatory conditions are also changing alongside these token models. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, who took office in April 2025, has prioritized clearer rules covering crypto issuance, custody, and trading.
Still, revenue-generating tokens do not automatically give holders the legal rights associated with company shares. The shift is therefore centered on measurable value transfer rather than fees alone.
As Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argues, revenue becomes more meaningful when token holders can clearly capture part of the economic activity a network creates.
Matt Hougan z Bitwise říká, že pokud se bude dál posilovat vazba mezi příjmy protokolů a jejich tokeny, ocenění kryptoměn mimo Bitcoin mohou vzrůst až dvojnásobně. Zmiňuje Hyperliquid, Uniswap a Aave jako příklady.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan argued on Aug. 12 that crypto valuations outside Bitcoin could rise sharply as more protocols connect revenue generated by network activity to their native tokens.
Summary
Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says stronger revenue capture could help crypto valuations double or more. Hyperliquid routes roughly 99% of fee revenue toward HYPE purchases through its Assistance Fund mechanism. Uniswap governance has funded about 7.5 million UNI burns through protocol fees since December 2025. Aave’s first ten months of buybacks acquired over 205,000 AAVE using $42 million in allocations. SEC commissioners will consider tailored crypto offering rules at an open meeting scheduled for Friday. In a memo, Hougan pointed to Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Aave, Pump.fun and Lighter as examples of projects using fees or other protocol revenue to finance token purchases or burns. He expects more DeFi applications and layer 1 networks to adopt similar structures over the next 12 to 24 months.
His strongest forecast was explicitly conditional. Hougan wrote that “we could see valuations double or more” if his view that the link between protocol revenue and token value continues strengthening proves correct. Bitwise also states that the memo represents an assessment at a particular time and is neither a guarantee of future results nor investment advice.
Crypto valuations increasingly face a revenue test Hougan’s argument rests on a change in how some tokens capture economic activity. Historically, many governance tokens gave holders voting powers without directly tying protocol fees to token demand. Buyback and burn systems attempt to create that connection by using revenue to acquire tokens from the market and then removing them from supply or holding them in protocol controlled mechanisms.
Hyperliquid provides one of the clearest current examples. Its official documentation says trading fees flow to the Assistance Fund, which converts them into HYPE, with acquired HYPE burned and removed from circulating and total supply. Hougan estimates that roughly 99% of fee revenue has been directed toward the mechanism.
The model has already become a major part of HYPE’s investment narrative. As previously reported, Hyperliquid routed more than $1.16 billion in trading fees into HYPE purchases, creating recurring token demand linked to exchange activity. That demand still depends on trading volumes and fee generation, meaning weaker activity would reduce the amount available for future purchases.
Hougan compared the structure with stock buybacks, but the comparison has limits. A crypto token does not automatically carry the legal rights attached to corporate equity. Token holders generally lack a shareholder’s contractual claim on profits, assets or distributions, and governance can change token economics. Hougan acknowledged those differences in his own analysis.
Uniswap and Aave show two different revenue models Uniswap has moved further toward an automated burn structure since governance approved UNIfication in December 2025. The measure burned 100 million UNI from the treasury and activated protocol fees for v2 and v3 pools. By July, Uniswap governance reported that protocol fees had financed about 7.5 million additional UNI in burns, worth roughly $25.6 million at the figures used in its proposal.
The system has continued expanding. An onchain vote to activate v4 protocol fees on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism and Robinhood Chain was executed on July 27 with 46.6 million UNI voting in favor. In related coverage, Uniswap expanded its revenue-linked UNI burn mechanism as governance pushed protocol fees into more versions and networks.
Aave uses a different structure. DAO funding records show its buyback program acquired more than 205,000 AAVE during its first 10 months after launching in April 2025. About $42 million had been allocated to those purchases, representing more than 1.28% of AAVE’s 16 million total supply.
Aave’s broader revenue framework is also evolving. Its Aave Will Win proposal directs 100% of revenue from Aave branded products to the DAO treasury, after specified partner revenue sharing and user incentives. The framework also states that the DAO receives protocol fees. That does not mean every dollar reaching the DAO is automatically and immediately used to purchase AAVE.
Kulechov said in June that “100% of Aave Protocol and GHO revenue goes to the $AAVE token,” while also saying the team was designing an automated and nondiscretionary Aavenomics 3.0 buyback system. The distinction matters because the new automated mechanism was described as work in progress rather than an already completed deployment. Earlier crypto.news coverage showed Aave governance considering larger recurring AAVE buybacks.
Pump.fun and Solana push revenue capture beyond DeFi Pump.fun has made its fee model unusually explicit. Its official token page lists 50% of protocol revenue as allocated to buybacks. The platform previously moved from a model that committed all revenue to purchases to a structure that directs half of net revenue toward automated PUMP buybacks and burns.
The mechanism is producing measurable activity. As crypto.news reported this week, Pump.fun generated $10.03 million in weekly protocol fees while burning $5.02 million of PUMP during Aug. 3 through Aug. 9. The platform said 2.15 billion PUMP were purchased and burned during that period.
The same debate is moving to base layer economics. Hougan cited Solana’s SGP 0003 process, which combines proposals designed to increase fee burns and reduce token issuance more quickly. One component, SIMD 0553, would replace Solana’s flat signature fee with an inclusion fee plus a resource based charge that is burned.
Modeling from proposal author Temporal estimates that full implementation could raise daily burns from roughly 648 SOL to between 7,500 and 9,000 SOL at comparable network activity.
The proposal has moved beyond an initial concept. Validator signaling cleared the required threshold on Aug. 5, and the formal governance process is now underway. The proposal still requires validator approval, so the projected increase in SOL burns should not be treated as an implemented change.
U.S. regulation may decide how far revenue models spread Hougan attributes part of the shift toward token revenue mechanisms to a more permissive U.S. regulatory environment. His argument references the Ripple litigation and the change in SEC leadership, but the legal history requires more precision than simply saying XRP was ruled not to be a security. The district court found Ripple’s institutional sales violated securities laws while certain other sales did not constitute investment contracts. The SEC and Ripple dismissed their appeals in August 2025, leaving the final judgment in place.
The regulatory framework has since changed further. In March 2026, the SEC adopted an interpretation that created categories for crypto assets and addressed when a nonsecurity crypto asset may nevertheless be involved in an investment contract. Chairman Paul Atkins described the framework as an effort to provide clearer boundaries under existing federal securities laws.
That does not amount to a blanket legal approval for token buybacks, burns or revenue distributions. The securities analysis can still depend on how a token is offered, what rights or promises accompany it and the relationship between buyers and a project team. Hougan’s claim that regulatory change will accelerate revenue capture is therefore an investment thesis rather than an established legal outcome.
The next U.S. development arrives quickly. The SEC is scheduled to hold an open meeting at 10 a.m. ET on Aug. 14 to consider whether to propose tailored offering rules for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. The agenda does not say those rules will specifically authorize token revenue sharing. Any proposal would also precede further rulemaking steps before becoming final.
That regulatory process will matter to Hougan’s broader thesis. As crypto.news previously reported, Hougan expects U.S. crypto growth to continue despite delays to the CLARITY Act, partly because he believes agency rulemaking can provide another route toward clearer operating conditions. Whether those rules make revenue capture easier, and whether investors assign higher valuations as a result, remains unproven.
LlamaRisk spustil LlamaGuard PT, údajně první automatizovaný risk oracle postavený na platformě Chainlink CRE. Má v reálném čase spravovat riziko Principal Tokens na Aave místo ručních zásahů.
A New Standard for DeFi Risk Management@LlamaRisk has launched LlamaGuard PT, billed as the world's first automated risk oracle built on the @Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE). The product is designed to handle real-time risk management for @PendleFinance Principal Tokens (PTs) used as collateral on @Aave, replacing a process that until now relied heavily on manual intervention.
LlamaRisk had been running the PT oracle manually and pushing parameter changes through the Risk Stewards path since Chaos Labs stepped down from Aave risk management in April. That arrangement was described as "a transitional path that was never meant to be permanent."
The shift to an automated pipeline addresses a structural gap in how DeFi protocols manage fast-moving risk. Traditional governance processes can take days to implement parameter changes, while market conditions can deteriorate in minutes. LlamaGuard PT is designed to close that gap by operating continuously, without waiting for a governance vote.
How LlamaGuard PT Works on Chainlink CREThree Chainlink CRE workflows replace the manual process. The workflows compute smoothed implied rates, discount rates, and per-E-Mode liquidation parameters for each Pendle PT market, each publishing a signed report that a new onchain router validates. The router writes atomically to the oracle and triggers execution in a single transaction, with every parameter change recorded on-chain and independently verifiable.
Under the new structure, Aave Governance owns every contract, the risk manager only proposes, and every parameter and tuning decision is recorded onchain. This represents a meaningful shift in accountability compared to the prior setup, where risk managers held write authority over key oracle parameters with limited on-chain auditability.
LlamaGuard adjusts lending parameters autonomously to prevent cascading failures, continuously optimising system settings based on real-time risk assessments and market conditions. CRE also enables LlamaGuard to initiate automated management actions to contain risk, such as triggering circuit breakers or adjusting parameters on target DeFi protocols.
Certora audits will cover both the new contracts and the CRE workflow code. Two of the three new contracts, the LlamaguardRiskOracle and ParameterRegistry, were already audited by two security teams as part of an earlier LlamaGuard NAV deployment.
Sources:
The Defiant: Aave Proposes Protocol-Wide Risk Framework After KelpDAO Exploit
Aave Governance: ARFC Upgrade PT Risk Oracle to Protocol-Owned Infrastructure on CRE
LlamaRisk: LlamaGuard Overview
Cross-chain bridge exploit odčerpal z KelpDAO zhruba 292 mil. USD v nebackovaných rsETH a dopady se promítly do bilance Aave. Útočník použil tyto nově mintované tokeny jako zástavu k vypůjčení 190 mil. USD v WETH a stablecoinech na Aave V3 a V4, což protokolu zanechalo přibližně 195 mil. USD ve špatném dluhu. Aave okamžitě zmrazil trhy rsETH a WETH.
A cross-chain bridge exploit drained roughly $292M worth of unbacked rsETH tokens from KelpDAO, and the fallout landed squarely on Aave’s balance sheet. The attacker used those freshly minted tokens as collateral to borrow $190M in WETH and stablecoins across Aave V3 and V4, leaving the protocol staring at approximately $195M in bad debt.
SparkLend, the lending arm under MakerDAO, had already reduced its rsETH exposure before the incident. The protocol absorbed between $1.4B and $1.7B in new deposits from users scrambling for safer ground, effectively doubling its total value locked within days.
How the exploit unfolded On April 18, roughly 116,500 rsETH tokens were minted without backing through KelpDAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge. That figure represented about 18% of rsETH’s entire supply.
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The attacker then deposited those tokens into Aave as collateral. Because Aave’s markets recognized rsETH at face value, the protocol processed the borrows like any other transaction. The result was $190M in borrowed assets that will almost certainly never be repaid.
Estimates for the resulting bad debt range from $124M to $230M depending on recovery assumptions, but $195M has emerged as the most widely referenced figure. Aave immediately froze its rsETH and WETH markets to prevent further damage.
The protocol’s TVL took a severe hit in the aftermath. From peaks near $26B, Aave saw declines reported between $6B and more than $10B as depositors pulled funds.
SparkLend’s strategic positioning pays off SparkLend’s decision to limit rsETH exposure before the exploit meant the bridge hack barely grazed it. Users fleeing Aave and other affected platforms deposited roughly $1.7B into SparkLend in the days following the exploit, doubling its TVL.
SparkLend wasn’t the only protocol to react quickly. Fluid halted operations entirely as a precaution, and multiple other platforms initiated their own market freezes.
Cleaning up the damage Aave’s community and DAO have moved to address the bad debt through a coordinated fundraising effort targeting $200M. So far, roughly $160M has been raised, with significant contributions from Mantle and the AAVE DAO itself.
Cross-chain bridges have been the single largest attack vector in DeFi for years. The Ronin bridge hack, the Wormhole exploit, and now the KelpDAO incident all follow a similar pattern: bridge vulnerability creates unbacked assets that propagate through the system before anyone can react.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aktivní úvěry na Aave za měsíc vzrostly na více než 11,3 miliardy USD zhruba z 10 miliard USD. Data DefiLlama ukazují, že poptávka po DeFi půjčování dál sílí.
Aave Loan Book Crosses $11.3 BillionActive loans on @aave have climbed past $11.3 billion, up from roughly $10 billion a month ago, according to protocol data tracked by DefiLlama. The roughly $1.3 billion increase in a single month points to sustained demand for decentralized borrowing, even as broader crypto markets have pulled back from late-2025 highs.
DefiLlama data shows Aave currently holds approximately $11.4 billion in active loans, with total value locked on V3 sitting at around $14.2 billion, up roughly 8% over the past 30 days. The original copy puts that TVL figure at $14.67 billion across the full protocol, with a 7.4% 30-day gain, alongside $27.1 million in fees for the period.
Aave V3 operates across 22 chains, with Ethereum holding the largest share at 82.9% of TVL. That multichain footprint has been central to the protocol retaining its position as the dominant DeFi lending venue despite growing competition.
Morpho Closes the Gap, But Aave Leads by a Wide MarginMorpho remains Aave's closest competitor by deposits. DefiLlama places Morpho Blue at roughly $7.95 billion in TVL, compared to Aave's $14.67 billion, leaving a gap of more than $6 billion between the two protocols.
The gap between Aave and Morpho has been narrowing every quarter since 2024. Morpho's growth has been driven largely by its modular architecture. Aave V3 operates as a monolithic pool where every supplier shares one liquidity contract per chain and the protocol sets risk parameters governance-wide, while Morpho took the opposite path, building Morpho Blue as a minimal lending primitive where anyone can deploy an isolated market and curated vaults allocate deposits across those markets.
By the end of 2025, Aave accounted for 61.5% of active loan market share, 52.4% of total value locked in the lending sector, and 43.2% of lending-sector revenue. The latest data suggests that lead remains intact heading into the second half of 2026.
Sources:
DefiLlama: Aave Protocol Data
Aave 2025 Year in Review (Aave Blog)
Zakladatel Aave Stani Kulechov ostře kritizoval návrh EIP, který by při podílu stakovaného ETH nad 50 % z celkové nabídky snížil výnos ze stakingu na 0 %. Varuje, že by to poškodilo Ethereum, DeFi i institucionální adopci.
Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov has spoken out against the EIP proposal, which has surfaced within the Ethereum community and aims to limit staking returns. Kulechov argued that the regulation would not deliver the intended results and could instead harm the Ethereum ecosystem and ETH’s attractiveness as an investment asset.
The proposal envisages reducing the staking return to 0% if the staked ETH ratio exceeds 50% of the total supply. According to Kulechov, this structure could make staking revenues unpredictable, rendering the activity uneconomical for many participants.
Aave CEO Kulechov stated that institutional investors, in particular, value predictable cash flows when building ETH positions. He noted that if returns become uncertain, these investors might turn to alternative blockchain networks offering more stable income, which could create a significant adoption cost for Ethereum.
Kulechov also argued that reducing staking yields to zero would render lending and yield strategies conducted via ETH largely ineffective. In such a scenario, he stated, the primary use case for ETH borrowing might be limited to short selling.
Kulechov stated that investors using ETH-linked yield products might turn to stablecoins or other interest-bearing assets, suggesting that the proposal could significantly shrink Ethereum-based lending and yield markets.
In his personal assessment, Kulechov stated that the proposal would weaken ETH’s viability as an asset and limit its long-term potential. Expressing his hope that the proposal would not proceed, the Aave CEO said that otherwise, many market participants might shift their interest to other blockchain networks.
Kulechov argued that Ethereum should not be penalized for its growth, noting that any changes to the network’s economic incentive structure should be carefully considered in terms of their impact on DeFi, staking, and institutional adoption.
*This is not investment advice.
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Hyperliquid a PumpFun tvoří 67 % výnosů aplikací na blockchainu a po započtení Etheny jde téměř o 80 %, což zrychluje konsolidaci DeFi. Aave zároveň ruší 50 málo využívaných rezerv a stahuje se z několika sítí.
The onchain revenue pie is becoming dangerously concentrated. A handful of applications now dominate fee generation across Ethereum and its layer‑2 ecosystems, and the pressure is already reshaping project treasuries and team structures. More than just a market cycle, the numbers point to a structural pivot that is separating durable protocols from those that scaled too fast.
ARK Invest researcher Lorenzo Valente captured the trend in a note highlighted by the original report: Hyperliquid and PumpFun alone account for 67% of total application revenue, and adding Ethena pushes the top three projects to nearly 80%. That kind of dominance leaves little oxygen for smaller teams, and the revenue squeeze is now visible in hiring, chain selection, and product strategy.
Revenue Concentration Reaches New Extremes Valente sees consolidation accelerating faster than in prior bear markets. Capital is flowing to teams that have proven product‑market fit while those that don’t are shutting down, filing for bankruptcy, or being absorbed. The onchain application layer, infrastructure providers, and even layer‑1 networks are all seeing revenue cluster around a few clear winners. For traders and liquidity providers, the shift means deeper books on dominant platforms but thinner markets elsewhere—a change that raises implicit concentration risk.
The pattern echoes what blockchain developer activity data already suggest. While hundreds of chains compete for attention, the bulk of meaningful building remains concentrated on a handful of networks, as recent developer activity rankings indicate. When teams are forced to streamline, they naturally retreat to ecosystems where users and liquidity already live.
PumpFun Rightsizes Before PUMP Unlock Solana meme coin launchpad PumpFun has become one of the highest‑earning applications in crypto, yet it is trimming headcount aggressively. The company laid off staff in early April, roughly two months before the first PUMP token unlock. At least one former employee lost token grants worth over $1 million at current prices. Co‑founder Noah Tweedale told staff the firm had “expanded too quickly,” according to the report. Former employees say another round of cuts followed in mid‑July, with more than 40 people dismissed across two months.
The timing is delicate. An unlock that adds sell pressure can destabilize a token’s price, and cutting staff just ahead of that event can look like an effort to manage dilution costs rather than a simple operational reset. For a platform that earns large revenue from trading fees, the optics are tricky. The market will watch whether the smaller team can maintain pace with Solana’s still‑frenetic meme coin activity without sacrificing uptime or user trust.
Aave Slims Operations for Institutional Push Aave is taking a different path but with the same theme: focus relentlessly on what works and shed the rest. Founder Stani Kulechov confirmed that the protocol will phase out 50 low‑utilization asset reserves and gradually close deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos. The changes cover roughly $98.1 million in deposits and $15.6 million in debt. Kulechov framed the moves as removing economic and technical drag, not as a verdict on any particular layer‑1 or layer‑2.
At the same time, Aave is going bigger on institutional features. The protocol acquired Zapper’s entire engineering team and is preparing to launch Aave Pro. The idea is to take the composability that retail users already enjoy and package it with the risk controls and interface that compliance‑conscious capital requires. That pivot aligns with the broader tokenization trend, where on‑chain versions of real‑world assets are becoming a serious institutional business, as explored in a recent tokenization roundup that tracked Ondo’s live Treasury settlement and the $20 billion RWA milestone.
Uniswap, 1inch Ship Fresh Infrastructure Even as some projects contract, the top venues are extending their reach. Uniswap launched “Launches,” a beta aggregator tab inside its web app that surfaces token launch platforms building on Uniswap infrastructure. The feature rolled out on Robinhood Chain first, a network choice that signals Uniswap wants to capture volume from retail‑friendly environments. Separately, it partnered with Morpho to offer a non‑custodial yield product where users can deposit USDC, USDT, and ETH into Gauntlet‑managed vaults.
1inch joined the infrastructure push by opening Aqua, its shared liquidity layer, to all users. The design allows traders to deploy one wallet balance across multiple pairs without pre‑depositing assets, with assets only moving at trade execution. Aqua currently spans 13 EVM chains and includes protection against JIT fee front‑running.
These launches highlight a quiet fact: while revenue is concentrating, the race to become the default execution layer for onchain activity is intensifying. Uniswap and 1inch are betting that better aggregation will keep traders inside their ecosystems even as the underlying liquidity fragments.
The consolidation narrative also colors Ondo Finance’s exploration of $250 million to $500 million acquisitions in wealth technology, a move that would extend its tokenized Treasury franchise. Meanwhile, Nansen’s CEO noted that AI trading agents could outnumber human traders within two years, a forecast that ties into the growing use of decentralized computing for AI‑driven Web3 applications. That kind of automation could further tilt revenue toward protocols built for machine‑to‑machine capital flows.
What remains unclear is whether this concentration will trigger pushback from networks that lose deployments or from users who value choice. Aave’s retreat from certain chains is designed to be low‑drama, but the risk is that smaller ecosystems interpret it as a signal they are not worth building on. Equally, PumpFun’s staff cuts raise questions about how lean a team can become before operational risk rises. The next few months will test whether the projects pulling back are simply tuning their engines or losing momentum.
AUTHOR
Nicholas Otieno is a fintech writer specializing in cryptocurrency markets. Since 2019, he has written articles to educate readers about cryptocurrency and its substantial positive impact on global prosperity. Nicholas is a Bitcoin holder, believing firmly in its fundamentals. His work has been featured in publications such as Finance Magnates, Blockchain.News, Bitcoin Magazine, Coincub, and among others. When he's not writing, Nicholas enjoys performing domestic tasks, spending time with friends, listening to music, and watching football.
Obchodování s tokenizovaným zlatem ve 1. čtvrtletí dosáhlo 90,7 miliardy USD, ale v DeFi je využito jen 1,5 % jeho kombinované tržní kapitalizace 4,2 miliardy USD. Z dvojice XAUT a PAXG je na Aave v3 a Morpho jako kolaterál nasazeno jen 63 milionů USD.
Demand for tokenized gold has soared in 2024, with spot trading volume reaching $90.7 billion in the first quarter as gold prices climbed to historic highs, according to research from RedStone, a decentralized oracle protocol that supplies accurate data for blockchain-based applications.
Physical gold rallies while DeFi usage stays limitedAs gold futures surpassed $5,600 per troy ounce, investors increasingly turned to blockchain-based gold tokens as a means of tracking the precious metal. However, the data shows that just $63 million worth of the two primary gold-backed tokens, Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG), is currently deployed as collateral on the leading DeFi platforms Aave v3 and Morpho. This figure amounts to only 1.5% of the combined token market cap of $4.2 billion.
Despite the popularity of tokenized gold for trading, these assets have not yet found meaningful use within the decentralized finance sector. Analysts attribute this to a range of infrastructure challenges and a lack of incentive for DeFi participants to use gold tokens over traditional crypto assets.
Gold TokenMarket CapCollateral in DeFiTether Gold (XAUT)Part of $4.2 billion (combined)$63 million total (with PAXG)PAX Gold (PAXG)Part of $4.2 billion (combined)$63 million total (with XAUT)Market test amid volatilityEarlier this year, tokenized gold assets underwent a significant market test. On March 23, Aave processed its largest cluster of XAUT liquidations during a sharp gold price downturn, yet the lending protocol continued operating smoothly. This demonstrated that tokenized gold can function reliably as collateral during periods of market stress, RedStone’s report noted.
The liquidation event followed a 10% weekly decline in gold prices, marking the metal’s worst week in over forty years. Greg Shearer, precious metals strategist at JPMorgan, labeled the episode an “extremely brutal flush.” RedStone’s data confirmed that liquidations across Morpho and Aave peaked in late March as volatility spiked.
After gold plummeted 10% in just one week, Aave managed its largest-ever XAUT liquidation cluster without disruptions, highlighting the asset’s reliability as DeFi collateral even under extreme conditions.
Since its highs in January, gold futures have fallen more than 26%, pressured by expectations of sustained higher US interest rates that have weighed on demand for non-yielding assets like precious metals.
Growth in tokenized RWA and future challengesTokenized gold is part of the broader real-world asset (RWA) market, which includes not only precious metals but also private credit, US Treasurys, and equities. According to Token Terminal, the total value of tokenized RWAs exceeded $43 billion in June, reflecting rapid growth in this blockchain sector.
Despite the expanding market, limited DeFi adoption of gold tokens signals that key infrastructure and incentives are still lacking. The challenge for the sector may now be driving greater real-world utility and integration with decentralized finance protocols.
Centralized crypto exchanges have responded by increasing support for tokenized assets. CoinGecko, a cryptocurrency analytics provider, cited rapid expansion of the so-called “crypto TradFi” market, which had grown to $6.6 billion by June as platforms seek to connect traditional finance with digital assets.
Mini dictionary: RedStone is a decentralized blockchain oracle protocol designed to deliver fast, reliable, and cost-effective data feeds for DeFi applications and smart contracts.
In the wider context, the tokenized commodities market has crossed the $6 billion mark, fueled largely by gold’s substantial rally.
Analysts emphasized that while tokenized gold assets have shown operational resilience, the next major barrier will be achieving mainstream usage within DeFi, as only a small fraction of existing supply is actively employed in lending and other decentralized finance activities.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
