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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Filed under: Bitcoin - @ August 25, 2025 10:15 pm