AAVE Rockets 19% on Aptos Launch, Powell’s Dovish Tone, and WLFI Token Buzz
On August 24, AAVE surged nearly 19% to $355.29, emerging as the top performer among the 40 largest cryptocurrencies by daily gains. The spike follows Aave’s recent launch on the Aptos blockchain, dovish remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and speculation surrounding Aave’s exposure to the WLFI token.
What Is Aave and Why It Matters
Aave is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform enabling users to lend and borrow cryptocurrencies without intermediaries. Smart contracts govern loans, requiring borrowers to post collateral exceeding loan values.
The AAVE token underpins this ecosystem—holders can stake it for rewards, use it as collateral, and exercise governance rights, granting them voting power and fee privileges that are vital to protocol operations.
Expansion to Aptos Blockchain
On August 21, Aave Labs announced Aave V3 had launched on Aptos, marking the protocol’s first deployment on a non-Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain. The platform was rebuilt in the Move programming language, with a redesigned user interface and adaptations for the Aptos virtual machine.
The launch included audits, a mainnet capture-the-flag competition, and a $500,000 bug bounty. Supported assets include APT, sUSDe, USDT, and USDC, with supply and borrow limits gradually increasing. Risk assessments were completed by Chaos Labs and Llama Risk, while Chainlink supplies real-time price feeds.
CEO Stani Kulechov described the Aptos launch as “an incredible milestone,” representing a key expansion beyond five years of EVM exclusivity.
Powell’s Dovish Speech Spurs Rally
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s August 22 speech at the Jackson Hole Symposium suggested that the balance of risks between inflation and employment is shifting. This raised expectations for potential interest rate cuts beginning in September.
Following Powell’s remarks, CME FedWatch data showed an 83% chance of a September rate cut, up from 75% earlier in the week. Equity markets and cryptocurrencies broadly rallied, with AAVE among the standout performers.
Rumors of WLFI Exposure
Adding fuel to the rally are rumors that Aave has exposure to WLFI, the governance token of World Liberty Financial, a DeFi project associated with Donald Trump’s family.
A proposal from October 2024 indicated that AaveDAO would receive 20% of protocol fees generated by the WLFI Aave V3 instance, along with approximately 7% of WLFI’s total token supply to participate in governance, liquidity mining, and decentralization efforts.
An analyst from Delphi Digital highlighted that with WLFI’s token expected to start trading on September 1 at an implied $27.3 billion valuation, Aave’s allocation could be worth about $1.9 billion — over one-third of AAVE’s fully diluted valuation of roughly $5 billion. This potential stake may be contributing to the recent price surge.
However, the WLFI team publicly denied claims that Aave would receive 7% of the WLFI token supply, calling such reports “false and fake news.”
Technical Snapshot
CoinDesk Research’s data shows that between August 22 (12:00 UTC) and August 23 (11:00 UTC), AAVE climbed 18.65%, rising from $297.75 to $353.22. This reflects growing market confidence in Aave’s strategic expansion.
During this period, AAVE traded within a $62.11 range, from $294.50 to $356.60. The most significant price jump occurred at 14:00 UTC on August 22, with volume reaching 340,907 units — more than three times the daily average.
Sustained buying pressure was noted in the final hour of the period analyzed, as prices advanced from $349.61 to $353.79. Trading volumes regularly exceeded 3,000 units at key levels, well above the average of 1,647 units, signaling deliberate institutional buying.
