Why AAVE Price Surged 20% Today: 3 Major Catalysts Driving the Rally

AAVE, the native token of the Aave lending platform, recorded one of the strongest gains in the crypto market over the past 24 hours after its price jumped by more than 20%. 

The token climbed from below a $80 intraday to nearly $97 before reversing briefly, breaking above a price level it had failed to cross for nine straight days. At the price time, the token is trading for $95.73. The trading activity in the last 24 hours has dropped by 1.91% as trading retires for the weekend, leaving the volume at $517 million. 

AAVE breaks past a key price barrier

The price breakout stood out because AAVE had spent more than a week struggling to move above the $76 mark. Every attempt to break through that level had failed, but fresh buying interest finally pushed the token higher.

As the price continued to rise, the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a tool traders use to measure market strength, also moved above its midpoint. Currently, it is at 82, which means an overbought level. This showed that buyers had gained more control and that bullish momentum was building. Breaking the psychological level of $100 would be the next target of the bulls.

Growing activity on Aave V4 fuels the rally

One of the biggest reasons behind the rally was the strong growth of Aave V4. The latest version of the lending protocol has continued to attract more users, only three months after its launch.

At the same time, deposits on Aave V4 have now passed $200 million for the first time. This means users have placed more than $200 million worth of digital assets into the platform, either to earn rewards or to use the assets for lending and borrowing activities.

The rise in deposits is important because it shows that many users are still willing to trust the platform even though the wider crypto market has faced selling pressure. Instead of pulling their funds out, more users are choosing to keep their assets on Aave, showing confidence in the protocol and its services.

Meanwhile, borrowing activity has also grown at a fast pace. Active loans on Aave V4 recently crossed $56 million, according to data from Token Terminal, and are moving closer to $60 million if the current pace continues. Just four weeks ago, active loans were slightly above $30 million. In a single month, the amount of money borrowed through the platform has almost doubled.

Standard Chartered sees more upside for Aave

Another factor supporting AAVE’s recent momentum came from banking giant Standard Chartered.

In a research note published on Wednesday, the bank said Aave could become one of the biggest winners as tokenized assets continue to enter decentralized finance (DeFi). Tokenization is the process of turning real-world assets, such as bonds or property, into digital assets that can be traded and used on blockchain networks.

https://t.co/rSkeKKT0dW

— BSCN (@BSCNews) June 25, 2026

The bank explained that Aave had recently faced two major challenges. The first was the general drop in cryptocurrency prices, which affected many digital assets across the market. 

The second was the impact of the April cyberattack involving KelpDAO. According to Standard Chartered, the $292 million incident caused some users to move their assets away from Aave, reducing its share of the decentralized lending market. However, Kendrick believes those problems are beginning to fade.

Standard Chartered also highlighted the size of Aave’s platform. The bank noted that Aave’s deposit base reached about $75 billion in October 2025. 

At that level, it would have ranked alongside the 30th-largest bank in the United States by customer deposits. The bank believes Aave could rebuild that scale as more tokenized real-world assets are used as collateral and as a source of liquidity in DeFi.

The bank expects the total value of assets locked across DeFi platforms to reach $2.7 trillion by 2030 as more real-world and crypto-native assets move onto blockchain networks.

Tokenized assets could change securities lending

Meanwhile, Aave executive Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo pointed to another reason why Aave V4 could become more important as tokenized assets grow.

Prime brokers and retail platforms like Robinhood and Schwab, etc earn sizable revenue by lending out the stocks that individuals/funds hold in their account. They typically keep 50-85% of the borrow fees, passing only a small share back to you.

More broadly, the Securities… pic.twitter.com/amXL9rVg0h

— Luigi D’Onorio DeMeo (@luigidemeo) June 26, 2026

In a post on X, he explained that large brokerage firms and retail trading platforms such as Robinhood and Schwab make a significant amount of money by lending out the stocks that customers keep in their accounts. 

When someone holds stocks with these platforms, the broker can lend those shares to other traders and collect borrowing fees. However, according to DeMeo, the broker usually keeps between 50% and 85% of those fees, while the customer receives only a small portion.

“Prime brokers and retail platforms like Robinhood and Schwab, etc earn sizable revenue by lending out the stocks that individuals/funds hold in their account. They typically keep 50-85% of the borrow fees, passing only a small share back to you,“ he wrote. 

He added that the global securities lending market currently has about $4.6 trillion worth of securities on loan and generates around $35 billion in annual revenue. Most of that income, he said, goes to brokers instead of the people who own the assets.

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