Aave eyes bigger 2025 after net deposits hit all-time high

Aave, a leading decentralized finance protocol, witnessed a remarkable year amid a host of key milestones.

But the Aave (AAVE) protocol, which offers a non-custodial platform that allows users to earn interest on their deposits as well as borrow assets, is eyeing an even “bigger” year in 2025. 

The DeFi giant shared the outlook in its end of year review on X, noting key milestones such as introduction of Aave 2030 and V4. The proposal for V4 looks at the strategic evolution of Aave across DeFi with improved modularity, reduced governance overhead, capital efficiency and innovative liquidity rollouts.

Aave is looking to strengthen its position with these future implementations.

The target is to build on a year that saw Aave launch new markets and set records as the protocol’s total value locked hit a new all-time high. Indeed TVL spiked as net deposits hit $35 billion while new markets included Aave DAO’s expansion to Scroll, BNB Chain, ZKSync Era and Ether.fi. The new markets offered a combined value size of $2.55 billion.

In 2025, Aave DAO governance approval will see more than six new chains added – current proposals include targeted integrations with Sonic, Mantle, Linea, Botanix Labs’ Spider Chain and Aptos.

Also set to see notable push for further growth is GHO, the decentralized overcollateralized stablecoin native to the Aave protocol. The project has plans for cross-chain expansion after debuting on Arbitrum in 2024. Over the coming months, GHO will look to go live on Base and Avalanche. 

In the markets, the Aave token saw its price rise to highs of $385 in the past 12 months — a peak last seen in Sept. 2021. While AAVE has pared recent gains, the DeFi token’s current price is more than 183% up in the past year and about 52% off its all-time high above $661 reached in May 2021.