With a 19% Jump in 24 Hours, AAVE Leads the Top 40 Crypto Rally — What’s Driving This?

AAVE Surges 19% on Aptos Launch, Powell’s Dovish Remarks, and WLFI Token Speculation

On August 24, AAVE led the top 40 cryptocurrencies with a nearly 19% jump to $355.29. The rally followed Aave’s expansion onto the Aptos blockchain, dovish comments from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and buzz about Aave’s potential exposure to the WLFI token.

What Is Aave and Why It Matters

Aave is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to lend and borrow cryptocurrencies without middlemen. Loans are managed via smart contracts, requiring collateral that exceeds the loan amount.

The AAVE token is the backbone of the protocol. It can be staked for rewards, used as collateral, and grants holders governance rights—giving them voting power and access to fee benefits critical for the platform’s operations.

Launch on Aptos Blockchain

On August 21, Aave Labs announced the launch of Aave V3 on Aptos, marking the protocol’s first deployment on a non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain. The code was rewritten in the Move programming language, and the user interface was revamped to fit Aptos’s virtual machine.

The launch was backed by security audits, a mainnet capture-the-flag competition, and a $500,000 bug bounty program. Supported assets include APT, sUSDe, USDT, and USDC, with supply and borrow caps planned to rise gradually. Risk assessments were done by Chaos Labs and Llama Risk, while Chainlink provides price feeds.

CEO Stani Kulechov called the launch “an incredible milestone,” marking a major expansion beyond five years confined to EVM-compatible chains.

Powell’s Dovish Speech Boosts Markets

At the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium on August 22, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that risks between inflation and employment are shifting, hinting at possible interest rate cuts starting in September.

Markets reacted positively, with CME FedWatch data showing an 83% chance of a September cut—up from 75% earlier in the week. Both equities and cryptocurrencies rallied broadly, with AAVE standing out among gainers.

WLFI Token Exposure Rumors

Adding to the excitement are rumors that Aave has exposure to WLFI, the governance token of World Liberty Financial—a DeFi project linked to Donald Trump’s family.

An October 2024 proposal detailed plans for World Liberty Financial to launch its own Aave V3 instance on Ethereum. It included:

• AaveDAO receiving 20% of the protocol fees generated by the WLFI Aave V3 instance.
• AaveDAO receiving approximately 7% of WLFI’s total token supply for governance, liquidity mining, and decentralization.

An analyst from Delphi Digital noted that with WLFI’s token expected to begin trading September 1 at an implied $27.3 billion valuation, Aave’s stake could be worth about $1.9 billion—over a third of AAVE’s current fully diluted valuation. This exposure might be contributing to the recent price surge.

However, the WLFI team denied claims that Aave will receive 7% of WLFI’s token supply, labeling the reports as false.

Technical Analysis Overview

CoinDesk Research data shows that between August 22 (12:00 UTC) and August 23 (11:00 UTC), AAVE rose 18.65%, from $297.75 to $353.22, reflecting strong investor confidence.

During this period, AAVE traded within a $62.11 range ($294.50 to $356.60). The biggest price jump occurred at 14:00 UTC on August 22, with volume spiking to 340,907 units—more than three times the daily average.

Sustained buying was observed late in the analysis period, with prices climbing from $349.61 to $353.79. Trading volumes exceeded 3,000 units at key price points, well above the average of 1,647 units, signaling solid institutional interest.