Aave Users Reach Record as Traders Quietly Shift Capital Toward DeFi Lending

Monthly active users on DeFi lending protocol Aave reached roughly 155,000 in February, marking an all-time high and nearly doubling over the past six months.

The rise in users comes as investors increasingly seek yield through decentralized lending protocols, according to on-chain analytics platform Token Terminal data.

Sean Dawson, head of research at on-chain options platform Derive, told Decrypt that market dynamics appeared to be the primary driver behind the swelling of users.

“The largest trade in crypto, the basis trade, has collapsed in recent months,” Dawson said. “Users used to be able to earn 10–30% or just by holding sUSDe, now this is less than 4%.” 

Broader structural shifts in crypto trading strategies are also pushing capital toward lending platforms, he said.

“Consequently, users have few places to park funds that are low risk—this makes lending the only remaining option,” he added.

Peter Chung, head of research at Presto Labs, told Decrypt that Aave’s long-standing role in decentralized finance infrastructure likely explains the continued growth in its user base.

“DeFi firms are largely experimental, but a select few have firmly established themselves as a critical onchain finance infrastructure,” Chung said. “Aave is one of them. They have gone through some governance changes recently, but not sure there is any causality there.”

The rise in user activity comes amid governance tension within the Aave ecosystem.

Last week, the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) said it would wind down, alleging that addresses tied to Aave Labs, including a 111,000 AAVE delegation from founder Stani Kulechov, helped swing the “Aave Will Win” temperature check, a $51 million funding proposal that passed with 52.58% support.

ACI founder Marc Zeller said stripping those votes would have flipped the result, while the group’s own exit post cited “no role for an independent service provider” when the largest budget recipient can influence its own approval.

The departure follows BGD Labs, the team behind Aave’s V3 codebase, which also stepped away over strategic disagreements with Aave Labs, leaving two major contributors gone in quick succession.

Despite the governance turmoil, lending and borrowing activity on the protocol continues to operate normally.

Aave currently holds nearly $27 billion in total value locked across 20 blockchains, making it the dominant DeFi lending protocol by a wide margin, according to DeFiLlama data.

AAVE, the protocol’s governance token, is trading around $107, down about 0.7% over the past 24 hours and roughly 83.8% below its 2021 all-time high of $661, according to CoinGecko data.

Looking ahead, Dawson said the protocol’s growth will depend on whether lending activity continues expanding.

“Continued growth on TVL is the main metric I’d look at,” he said, adding that stability of rates without large deposits or withdrawals in the coming months will also be an important signal for the protocol’s trajectory.