Aave reached an all-time high total value locked (TVL) of $41.1 billion on Aug. 24, positioning the decentralized lending protocol as the equivalent of the 54th largest US commercial bank by total deposits based on Federal Reserve data as of Jun. 30.

The money market protocol would replace the Prosperity Bank, which has $38.4 billion in deposits, and would fall just $300 million short of surpassing Bank OZK.

Considering the Fed lists 2,156 commercial banks in the US, Aave’s size is enough to place it among the top 2.5% largest banks in the country.

DefiLlama data showed that including Aave’s outstanding borrows of $28.9 billion as of Aug. 24 would raise the combined figure to $71.1 billion. The borrowing volume was just below the all-time high of $29.1 billion recorded on Aug. 13.

The TVL increased by the borrows would be enough to place Aave among the 37th largest US commercial banks, a 1.7% group.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said in an Aug. 24 social media post:

“Aave Protocol is like the 37th-largest bank, except it isn’t a bank, but a network any financial institution can plug into to unlock non-Fed–correlated yield.”

Dominance in lending

The money market protocol controlled approximately 50% of the DeFi lending market’s total TVL as of Aug. 24, commanding a dominant position within the $81.5 billion lending sector.

The percentage indicates that Aave’s TVL is equivalent to the combined TVL of all other money markets. The protocol is nearly 6x larger than its closest rival, Morpho, which holds just $7 billion in deposits.

Aave achieved multiple records last week amid strong DeFi lending sector performance. The protocol reached $3 trillion in cumulative deposits on Aug. 15 while surpassing $29 billion in active loans on Aug. 13.

The AAVE token is following the protocol’s fundamentals. Since recording a low of $114.05 on April 8, the token has climbed over 177% to $316.74 as of press time.

Institutional adoption drives the protocol’s expansion, with Nasdaq-listed BTCS using Aave to generate yield on Ethereum holdings. Additionally, $6.4 billion of Ethena’s USDe stablecoin and related assets are deposited on the platform.

The multiple records demonstrate Aave’s evolution into institutional-grade financial infrastructure, capturing market share as traditional finance institutions integrate decentralized lending services into their operations.

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Blockchain infrastructure platform Centrifuge has crossed $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), joining the ranks of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund and Ondo Finance as the only real-world asset (RWA) platforms to surpass the milestone.

Centrifuge CEO Bhaji Illuminati attributed the milestone to institutions moving from pilots to “real deployments,” alongside strong onchain allocator demand.

“Markets need more than T-bills,” Illuminati told Cointelegraph, pointing to JAAA, an onchain version of Janus Henderson’s AAA-rated collateralized loan obligation (CLO) investment fund, as a natural next step for institutions seeking higher yields than risk-free rates.

Illuminati said that US Treasurys remain the dominant entry point for onchain allocators, but the JAAA product is the fastest-growing tokenized fund in the segment. “We are also seeing rising interest in private credit as institutions look for differentiated yield, with more news coming soon on that front,” he added.

Related: GENIUS Act yield ban may push trillions into tokenized assets — ex-bank exec

Strong demand for tokenized S&P 500

In early July, Centrifuge unveiled a tokenized S&P 500 product as part of a partnership with S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). The product is structured as a regulated professional fund in the British Virgin Islands.

According to Illuminati, demand has been “very strong” ahead of its official rollout in the coming weeks. The launch will be supported by an anchor pool of capital to ensure broad accessibility from day one.

Illuminati added that the S&P 500 is only the beginning, with plans to bring sector-specific and thematic indexes onchain in the near future. “We see strong potential for sector and thematic index products to come onchain next,” he said.

Centrifuge’s pipeline is split between traditional asset managers using  Web3 native asset manager Anemoy and onchain-native managers leveraging its RWA Launchpad. On the demand side, stablecoins and yield products are the biggest buyers, using RWAs to set a “yield floor” for reserves.

Related: eToro to tokenize 100 most popular US stocks on Ethereum

deRWA to bring tokenized assets to retail

Illuminati highlighted plans to open tokenized assets to retail investors through major exchanges, wallets, lending protocols and DeFi integrations through the deRWA initiative. deRWA, as used in DeFi, stands for tokenized RWAs that are engineered for composability and liquidity within DeFi.

As reported, S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) is also in discussions with major exchanges, custodians and DeFi protocols to license and list tokenized versions of its benchmarks, according to Stephanie Rowton, the firm’s director of US equities.

“By establishing these types of relationships, we hope we can work together to participate in a robust infrastructure that supports the trading and accessibility of tokenized versions of our indexes, ultimately enhancing the investor experience,” Rowton said.

Looking ahead, Illuminati expects public market RWAs such as Treasurys and equities to lead adoption in the short term due to liquidity and familiarity. However, he believes private markets will eventually dominate, as blockchain removes inefficiencies and unlocks hidden value.

In a report earlier this month, Boston Consulting Group and Ripple estimated that tokenized real-world assets could exceed $18 trillion by 2033, with a compound annual growth rate of 53%.

Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs — Inside story

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/centrifuge-tops-1b-tvl-as-institutions-drive-tokenized-rwa-boom-ceo/feed/ 0 53652 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ethena-labs-usde-overtakes-rivals-as-fastest-growing-stablecoin-reaching-10b-in-tvl-in-just-500-days/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ethena-labs-usde-overtakes-rivals-as-fastest-growing-stablecoin-reaching-10b-in-tvl-in-just-500-days/#respond Sun, 10 Aug 2025 15:47:22 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/ethena-labs-usde-overtakes-rivals-as-fastest-growing-stablecoin-reaching-10b-in-tvl-in-just-500-days/

USDe has set a new industry record by hitting $10 billion in total value locked (TVL) in just 500 days, making it the fastest stablecoin in history to reach that milestone.

The protocol behind USDe, Ethena Labs, posted:

“everyone wants to know what we’d say if we didn’t reach $10b supply

i guess we’ll never know”

The GENIUS behind the rise of USDe

USDe’s rapid climb has coincided with the passing of the GENIUS Act, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, which represents the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoins in the United States.

Enacted on July 18, 2025, it imposes strict new rules on issuers, including 1:1 reserve requirements in low-risk assets, robust federal oversight for large issuers, and strong consumer protections such as priority repayment rights in the event of failure.

The most impactful provision of the ACT, however, and the catalyst behind the rise of USDe, is the prohibition on regulated issuers paying yields on stablecoins, as CoinFund president Chris Perkins told CryptoSlate:

“Under GENIUS, stablecoins do not pay interest to end users, and without interest, stablecoins are depreciating assets. So, holders will seek yield. And that’s where DeFi comes in. If the Treasury Department’s projections are correct and trillions of stablecoins come into the system, expect DeFi summer on steroids as users seek to maximize yield by engaging across a variety of yield strategies. Users will be drawn to yield-bearing vaults, and they will commission AI agents to optimize their returns.”

This ban on yield payments is causing a profound realignment in the stablecoin market. Capital that once flowed to traditional, yield-paying stablecoins such as USDC has been seeking alternatives, and much of it has landed with USDe. As prominent crypto trader, Cas Abbé, pointed out:

“The reason behind this growth is GENIUS Act approval, which prohibit issuers to provide yields on stablecoins.

Due to this, big money has now shifted to $USDe which provides lucrative yield.”

DeFi yield opportunities fuel demand

Ethena Labs has been able to attract this demand thanks to continued yield offerings via decentralized finance (DeFi) mechanisms, which fall outside the restrictions placed on federally supervised issuers. The result is a massive inflow of institutional and retail capital, propelling USDe past many of its competitors. The ENA governance token has also experienced a price appreciation of over 100% in the past month.

USDe’s $10 billion milestone is a testament to how dramatically the GENIUS Act has reshaped the stablecoin landscape. While the law tightens controls and imposes new safeguards, it has also created opportunities for nimble, DeFi-native protocols to capture yield-hungry capital, proving that regulatory shifts don’t have to stifle innovation.

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Between July 21 and 25, the total stablecoin market cap increased by $4.505 billion to reach $265.22 billion, a 1.73% expansion. Over the same timeframe, total value locked (TVL) in DeFi dropped from $140.804 billion to $135.934 billion, a 3.46% drawdown.

While the rise in stablecoin supply could be interpreted as a sign of incoming capital, the simultaneous drop in DeFi TVL tells us that the new liquidity isn’t being deployed; it’s waiting.

Ethereum saw its TVL fall 2.53% in the past 24 hours despite leading a 7-day climb of over 7.5%. Its price remained relatively stable over the three days, jumping to $3,707 on July 24 and returning to $3,565 on July 25, posting a net gain of just 0.78%.

Price stability paired with a declining TVL and expanding stablecoin base indicates a shift in the market. Capital seems to be rotating out of yield-bearing DeFi positions into liquid, passive stablecoins.

The TVL to stablecoin supply ratio, an effective proxy for on-chain capital efficiency, fell from 0.535 to 0.513 over the past three days. The drop suggests that on-chain capital is growing more risk-averse. With fewer stablecoins being deployed in DeFi protocols and more sitting idle in wallets, bridges, and exchange balances, traders seem to be preparing for another bout of volatility.

This caution is clearly seen in data from DeFi Llama. Ethereum accounts for $81.094 billion of total DeFi TVL and $133.008 billion in stablecoins, yielding a TVL/stablecoin ratio of 0.61, close to the market average. However, a deeper look across other chains shows a fragmented landscape with sharp differences in capital utilization.

Ethereum anchors, Tron hoards

Tron carries $81.989 billion in stablecoins (nearly a third of the entire market), but only $5.766 billion in TVL. That ratio of 0.07, the lowest among top chains, confirms Tron’s role as a stablecoin bridge and settlement layer rather than a yield-driven ecosystem. The new $4.5 billion in stablecoins that entered circulation this week appears to have landed primarily on Tron, Ethereum, and a few L2s like Base and Arbitrum.

Arbitrum and Base showed more balanced deployments. Base holds $4.171 billion in stablecoins and $4.164 billion in DeFi TVL, nearly a 1:1 ratio. Arbitrum follows closely with $3.492 billion in stables and $2.889 billion in TVL, implying capital is actively deployed. In contrast, Solana and BSC maintain moderate deployment ratios of 0.84 and 0.61, respectively. However, both saw sharp one-day drawdowns in TVL, with Solana losing as much as 10%.

Sui and Avalanche show the inverse pattern, with more TVL than stablecoins. Sui has a 2.11 TVL/stables ratio, suggesting capital on the chain is being held in volatile or native assets like LSTs, bridged tokens, or RWAs rather than in stablecoins. Avalanche, too, shows a slight over-indexing in TVL versus stable liquidity.

The combination of growing stablecoin supply and falling TVL is counterintuitive in a healthy, bullish market, where stablecoin mints are often a precursor to yield deployment and leverage. The change we’ve seen in the past three days implies that traders have become slightly more risk-averse.

This may be due to several different factors. DeFi lending rates across protocols remain low, reducing the appeal of stablecoin carry trades. Leverage unwind on perps and restaking positions may be spilling into DeFi TVL. Larger capital pools could also be waiting for new opportunities to deploy.

Stablecoin dominance data supports this interpretation. With USDT holding 61.80% of the total stablecoin market, capital is consolidating in the most liquid, CEX-friendly unit. This choice reinforces the view that large holders are keeping their options open. They want to be able to exit quickly or rotate into other assets like BTC/ETH/perps without slippage.

While DeFi TVL fell nearly $5 billion over three days, ETH managed to stay afloat, even posting a modest gain. This decoupling implies that ETH price action is driven more by structural factors than organic DeFi growth.

That said, if idle stablecoins on Ethereum and L2s eventually rotate back into DeFi through restaking, LSTs, or new incentive programs, ETH could benefit as demand for blockspace rises and staking-derived fees increase. Conversely, if stablecoin capital remains undeployed and ETH fails to hold its current range, the lack of DeFi bid support could become a tailwind for ETH/BTC rotation.

The post Capital shifts to stablecoins as DeFi protocols bleed TVL appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Solana’s market cap has climbed back above the $100 billion threshold, driven by a broader crypto market recovery that is lifting the value of major altcoins.

As of July 21, data from CryptoSlate shows Solana’s market cap surged by over 7% in the past 24 hours, reaching approximately $104 billion, its highest point since January. This follows a notable price increase that pushed SOL to a six-month high of $194.

The recent price surge has also invigorated Solana’s DeFi ecosystem. According to DeFiLlama data, the total value locked (TVL) across Solana-based protocols now exceeds $10 billion. This is the highest level recorded since January and reflects renewed interest in the network’s DeFi offerings.

The growth is also visible in decentralized exchange (DEX) activity. Solana-based DEX platforms processed $23 billion in trading volume over the past week, a nearly 22% increase compared to the previous week.

This uptick in user activity suggests improving liquidity and growing confidence in the network’s scalability and performance.

Smarter liquidity mining campaigns powered by Carbon DeFi’s onchain strategies and Metrom’s KPI-based incentive protocol

Token projects on Sei now have a smarter way to launch liquidity mining campaigns — with outcome-based rewards and full onchain control. Thanks to the recent integration between Carbon DeFi and Metrom, token projects aren’t just subsidizing idle liquidity, they’re designing targeted reward systems that reflect real trading activity.

Metrom is a protocol for launching targeted incentive campaigns tied to measurable KPIs. Rather than distribute rewards blindly, Metrom lets projects set clear goals — and only pays when those targets are met.

Projects can choose their token pairs, define campaign durations, customize payout logic, and filter participants — all from one interface.

Most trading platforms limit what users can do. Bancor designed Carbon DeFi to change that — giving users the tools to trade the way they’ve always wanted, but never could.

With Carbon DeFi, users create precision strategies using custom limit and range orders — including recurring “buy low, sell high” cycles that run automatically. Strategies execute in one direction, at predefined prices, with zero slippage, full onchain adjustability, and immunity from MEV sandwich attacks. It’s not just trading — it’s automated execution with intent.

Now, Metrom enables token projects to incentivize these strategies directly — rewarding the kind of behavior that drives real market activity, not just idle liquidity.

Instead of paying mercenary LPs to idle capital in passive pools, token projects can now launch campaigns that reward active strategies — built on intent, price targets, and real market participation.

Together, Carbon DeFi and Metrom support more active, efficient markets — and reward traders who actually contribute to them.

And because Carbon DeFi includes a built-in trading bot, Bancor’s Arb Fast Lane, orders are filled efficiently using liquidity from across the entire Sei ecosystem.

Smarter incentives. Cleaner execution. Real trading strategies.

Reach out on Telegram or Discord to get started.

The DeFi market has rebounded at the beginning of July, with total value locked (TVL) rising to $116.416 billion, a level last seen in April. The 24-hour increase of 4.95% reflects rising crypto asset prices and renewed deposit flows into lending protocols, restaking services, and yield-bearing primitives.

As Ethereum and Solana continue to absorb most DeFi capital, restaking-led protocols such as EigenLayer and ether.fi have positioned themselves as structural pillars of on-chain liquidity.

At the top of the DeFi leaderboard, AAVE has reasserted its position as the dominant money market with $25.871 billion in locked value across 18 chains. The platform’s 2.62% month-on-month increase reflects user preference for maturity, scale, and liquidity depth, especially during periods of rising ETH borrowing costs. AAVE now holds over 22% of the TVL across DeFi, outpacing Lido and other restaking alternatives.

Lending has emerged as one of the most stable categories within DeFi, bolstered by protocols like Morpho, which posted a 25.35% monthly gain. Morpho’s traction is closely tied to its hybrid peer-to-peer lending structure and increased collateral caps, particularly for stETH. Its rapid ascent to $4.498 billion in TVL places it just outside the top 10 and firmly above legacy competitors like JustLend and Pendle.

Meanwhile, Pendle, which enables tokenized fixed-yield strategies, recorded a monthly increase of 11.71% to $4.822 billion. The continued appetite for principal-token and yield-token separation, especially in a market with few new lending primitives, shows the persistent demand for yield certainty, even if duration risk remains.

The Ethereum-native restaking ecosystem remains one of the few areas in DeFi attracting fresh capital. EigenLayer, with $12.145 billion in TVL, saw a 7.41% increase over the past month despite winding down parts of its points program. That increase shows its growing role as a collateral foundation for actively validated services (AVSs) and shared security mechanisms.

Another player in the restaking niche, ether.fi,  maintained its position with $6.72 billion, though its 0.11% growth over the past month signals a plateau following the rapid accumulation seen in Q2. Combined, EigenLayer and ether.fi now control over $18.8 billion, accounting for more than 16% of all DeFi capital, rivaling the entire TVL of Lido and Tron’s entire DeFi stack.

One notable outlier is Ethena, which saw a 5.74% decrease in TVL to $5.464 billion. The drawdown likely reflects redemptions of sUSDe and waning short-term enthusiasm for synthetic dollar yields after months of explosive growth. With Mcap/TVL now at 0.32, Ethena still holds a premium valuation, but the market appears to be cycling some capital into more sustainable yield venues.

The performance of BlackRock’s BUIDL token, while down 2.32% over the month, is a perfect example of the role real-world assets (RWAs) play in anchoring capital during volatile periods. With a Mcap/TVL ratio of 1.01, the fund remains fully backed by tokenized Treasury bills and shows little deviation in either direction. BUIDL’s $2.832 billion in TVL makes it the fifteenth-largest protocol in DeFi and the largest tokenized RWA instrument to date.

The marginal drawdown mirrors recent weakness in Treasury prices, rather than protocol issues. With yields climbing again on the front end of the curve, the question remains whether demand for tokenized RWAs can outpace capital rotation into higher-yield on-chain instruments.

Last week showed the convergence of spot and perpetual DEX volumes, which landed at $13.653 billion and $13.084 billion, respectively. This parity is unusual, as perpetual markets typically outpace spot by a wide margin, and may indicate a healthy shift toward hedging activity or organic demand for base-layer assets.

In previous periods of market euphoria, perpetual volumes often inflated disproportionately, driven by leverage-fueled speculation. The current ratio suggests more disciplined capital deployment, which could reflect the influence of larger players and more risk-aware strategies dominating DEX activity.

Ethereum continues to dominate DeFi TVL with $65.035 billion, representing over 55% of total locked value. Its 1-day (+6.42%) and 7-day (+6.21%) changes show strong and consistent inflows driven by asset appreciation and deposit migration back to L1 vaults.

Solana now commands $8.768 billion in DeFi TVL, a 5.67% 7-day increase. The chain continues to benefit from a resurgence in institutional and retail interest, likely supported by recent spot SOL ETF approvals in Canada and growing NFT activity. With several top-performing DEXs and yield farms, Solana has grown its share to 7.5%, the highest since Q1 2024.

Other networks, such as Base (+5.40% daily) and Sui (+9.77% daily), posted sharp one-day gains, hinting at new capital rather than just price effects. While these inflows are still modest in dollar terms, they mark a directional signal that Layer-2s and alt-L1s are beginning to claw back attention, especially as Ethereum fees remain elevated.

Stablecoins continue to serve as DeFi’s latent fuel. At $254.598 billion, the total market cap of stablecoins is more than double the value locked in DeFi protocols. This 2.19x ratio suggests substantial dry powder waiting for redeployment, especially if rates remain attractive and new structured products emerge. It also provides a buffer against forced liquidations in the event of sudden volatility, as more capital is sitting idle in pegged assets than in active yield strategies.

The first week of July has painted a picture of renewed strength for DeFi, especially in core lending and restaking segments. With a stablecoin surplus, maturing yield primitives, and clear user rotation back into blue-chip protocols, DeFi appears to be entering the second half of 2025 with stronger footing than at any point this year.

The post DeFi TVL breaks above $116B as lending roars back appeared first on CryptoSlate.