Aave's Net Deposits Surpass $50 Billion—First DeFi Project to Hit This Milestone

According to Aave’s founder, the protocol is seeing increased adoption among traditional financial institutions and has become the first DeFi project with net deposits exceeding $50 billion. The figure represents the total of all assets supplied minus outstanding loans across 34 on-chain markets. This breakthrough aligns with the ongoing DeFi recovery: total TVL (Total Value Locked) across DeFi has approached $120 billion for the first time since December 2024, with Ethereum-based lending protocols making up over $63 billion of TVL. DefiLlama data shows Aave’s TVL is $29 billion, almost half of that amount. Several upgrade proposals—like the Aave V4 upgrade introducing account abstraction and native RWA vaults—are being discussed, along with Bitcoin Layer2 support and expanding Aave’s GHO stablecoin to more chains