aave

1) Executive summary
$AAVE is DeFi's dominant lending project, operating decentralized markets where users supply assets to earn yield and borrowers access overcollateralized loans. The project manages risk parameters directly through governance, offering a battle-tested approach to decentralized lending with over five years of operational history. Since launching in 2020, Aave has iterated toward greater capital efficiency, risk segmentation, and multichain expansion across three major versions, with V4 expected later in 2026.
January marked a strong start to 2026 across Aave's core lending metrics. TVL, active loans, fees, and revenue all grew month over month, with TVL and active loans also posting substantial year-over-year gains. Market share expanded as Aave continued to outpace the broader lending sector's growth. However, monthly active users declined both month over month and year over year, continuing a trend of consolidation following elevated activity in late 2025.
The chain distribution remained concentrated on #Ethereum , which accounted for over 80% of TVL, active loans, fees, and revenue. However, user activity continued to skew toward Aave's multichain deployments.
🔑 Key metrics (January 2026)
Total value locked: $57.33b (+5.18% MoM, +59.71% YoY)Active loans: $23.25b (+7.27% MoM, +58.12% YoY)Fees: $75.13m (+14.95% MoM, -4.81% YoY)Revenue: $9.96m (+14.47% MoM, -34.27% YoY)Monthly active users: 114.60k (-5.83% MoM, -15.80% YoY)Market share: 62.82% (+0.61 pp MoM, +1.73 pp YoY)
👥 Aave team commentary:
"January reinforced Aave's position as foundational infrastructure for onchain lending. Total loans originated since launch approached $1 trillion, ETH deposits on the Ethereum Core market reached an all-time high, and Aave's share of #defi TVL has grown from approximately 8% to 28% over the past two years.
Distribution expanded meaningfully through integrations with Kraken DeFi Earn, Jumper Exchange, and Balance. These partnerships extend Aave's reach into CeFi, custody, and aggregation layers without fragmenting liquidity. Stablecoin adoption continued to drive growth, with PYUSD crossing $400m in deposits and over $15b in stablecoin supply now flowing through the protocol.
The Horizon market for RWA-backed lending reached new milestones, with deposits approaching $600m and borrows crossing $200m. On the engineering side, the Aave V4 security contest concluded with 918 participating researchers, marking progress toward the V4 protocol upgrade expected later in 2026.
Aave's recently published '2025 Year in Review' provides further context: at peak, $AAVE held $75b in deposits, enough to rank among the top 50 U.S. banks by assets held. The protocol also processed over $1.1b in liquidations across 100,000+ events without a single issue, while GHO supply grew to nearly $500m."
2) Total value locked
Total value locked (TVL) measures the total USD value of collateral deposited into Aave and outstanding loans. January TVL averaged $57.33b, up 5.18% from December's $54.51b and up 59.71% from January 2025's $35.90b. Ethereum accounted for 81.77% of deposits, with Plasma (8.19%), Arbitrum One (3.52%), and Base (2.59%) comprising the largest non-Ethereum deployments.

3) Active loans
Active loans measures the total USD value of outstanding borrows across all Aave lending markets. January active loans averaged $23.25b, up 7.27% from December's $21.67b and up 58.12% from January 2025's $14.70b. The chain distribution closely mirrored TVL, with Ethereum at 81.90% and Plasma at 8.75%.

4) Fees
Fees measure the total USD value of fees paid by users across all of Aave's lending markets. This metric aggregates fees from six primary sources: lending interest from V2 and V3 markets, flash loan fees, liquidation fees, GHO borrowing interest, and GHO stability module fees. January fees totaled $75.13m, up 14.95% from December's $65.36m but down 4.81% from January 2025's $78.93m. Trailing twelve-month fees reached $943.71m. Ethereum generated 79.63% of fees, a smaller share than its 81.77% of TVL, with Plasma (9.65%) and Base (3.26%) contributing disproportionately to fee generation relative to their deposit bases.

5) Revenue
Revenue measures the total USD value of fees retained by the Aave DAO. January revenue totaled $9.96m, up 14.47% from December's $8.70m but down 34.27% from January 2025's $15.15m. Trailing twelve-month revenue reached $138.30m. Ethereum accounted for 84.31% of revenue, a higher share than its 79.63% of fees, reflecting stronger revenue retention on mainnet relative to other deployments.

6) Monthly active users
Monthly active users (MAU) measures the number of unique wallet addresses that have interacted with #AAVE over a rolling 30-day period. January MAU totaled 114.60k, down 5.83% from December's 121.70k and down 15.80% from January 2025's 136.10k. Unlike TVL and fees, user activity skewed heavily toward L2s: Base led at 38.16%, followed by Ethereum (20.40%) and Arbitrum One (16.77%). L2 chains collectively accounted for over 56% of monthly active users.

7) Market share
Market share measures $AAVE share of active loans relative to other lending projects, including Morpho, Maple Finance, Fluid, Spark, Kamino, Compound, Euler, and Venus. Aave averaged 62.82% market share in January, up 0.61 pp from December and up 1.73 pp year over year. With $23.25b in active loans out of a $37.00b total market, Aave held more than the combined total of all other tracked competitors.

8) Definitions
Products:
Aave V1: the original version of Aave, launched in January 2020.Aave V2: the second major version, launched in December 2020, introducing features like flash loans and credit delegation.Aave V3: the current major version, launched in March 2022, enabling multichain expansion and improved capital efficiency.Aave V4: the upcoming version, expected in 2026, promising a unified Liquidity Hub with modular risk controls.GHO: a decentralized stablecoin native to Aave, launched in 2023, where borrowers mint GHO using their Aave collateral.Horizon: Aave's market for RWA-backed lending, enabling credit against tokenized real-world assets.
Metrics:
Total value locked: measures the total USD value of collateral deposited into Aave and outstanding loans.Active loans: measures the total USD value of outstanding borrows across all Aave lending markets.Fees: measures the total USD value of fees paid by users across all of Aave's lending markets. This metric aggregates fees from six primary sources: lending interest from V2 and V3 markets, flash loan fees, liquidation protocol fees, GHO borrowing interest, and GHO stability module fees.Revenue: measures the total USD value of fees retained by the Aave DAO.Monthly active users: measures the number of unique wallet addresses that have interacted with Aave over a rolling 30-day period.Market share: measures Aave's share of active loans relative to other lending projects.
This article is my personal research and opinion, so if you have to perform any action do your own research also.
#AAVEUSDT #bullishleo