Morpho loans hit record $5B as stablecoin borrowing dominates Morpho’s outstanding loans reached an all-time high of $5 billion on Sept. 1, Messari reported, narrowing the gap with lending leader Aave. Stablecoins made up 95% of borrowing, with USDC alone accounting for 62%, while Base has become the protocol’s main growth driver through Coinbase’s Morpho-based crypto-backed lending product.
Aave advances cirBTC listing vote for V3 and V4 Core An ARFC to add Circle Wrapped Bitcoin (cirBTC) to Aave V3 Core and Aave V4 Core on Ethereum has moved to Snapshot, with voting set to start in less than 24 hours. The proposal would enable cirBTC as collateral and includes draft launch parameters covering borrowability, supply and borrow caps, LTV, liquidation settings, reserve factors, interest rate curves, and price feed recommendations.
Aave speeds up second round of USDe risk parameter changes Aave has executed the second round of Stablecoin IRM adjustments through its Risk Steward process, raising Slope1 by 20 bps — double the first round’s step — as utilization rises across targeted reserves. The USDe repricing is meant to remove subsidized borrowing; the proposal says it could recover about $19M a year for Ethena stakers, lifting the expected staking rate from 4.8% to 5.3%, while a temporary uOptimal increase adds roughly $116M in borrowing capacity for debt migrations.
Robinhood Chain posts record DEX volume as Pons drives half of activity Robinhood Chain logged $874.8 million in DEX volume and 5,521,213 daily transactions on Aug. 30, its biggest day since mainnet launched on July 1. DefiLlama data shows the network also topped Ethereum and Hyperliquid in 24-hour app revenue, trailing only Solana. Pons.family accounted for $445.98 million, or about 51%, of the chain’s volume, underscoring how much the spike was concentrated in one launchpad.
Aave Horizon proposal would add HINC as RWA collateral A proposal on Aave Horizon would onboard HINC, the tokenized share class of the Neuberger Securitize High Income Tokenized Fund, as supply-only collateral with USDC, GHO and RLUSD borrowable against it. The key risk term is a planned liquidator backstop equal to 3-5% of borrowed TVL over a three-day liquidation window for the NAV-priced high-yield credit fund, with governance also asked to define how Executive Action bad debt would be allocated.
Aave weighs tighter CRV limits after Curve exploit volatility Aave risk managers and contributors are reviewing new restrictions on CRV after the Vyper zero-day exploit drove volatility higher around a loan of more than $60 million. Proposed and deployed steps include AIP-288 cuts to LTV, LT and debt ceilings on V3 Ethereum and Polygon, plans to set LTV to 0 on V2 via AIP-286, disable CRV borrows on V3, and reduce CRV liquidation thresholds on V2 Ethereum by 6% to limit insolvency risk and push migration to safer setups.
Aave proposal would add about 52,000 AAVE to Safety Module allowances TokenLogic has submitted a direct AIP to raise the stkAAVE reward allowance so it covers all rewards already earned plus 90 days of emissions at the unchanged rate of 150 AAVE a day. The proposal says stkAAVE’s current allowance covers just 8.4% of claimable rewards, while also resizing sunset module allowances: topping up stkABPT v1 and stkGHO, and cutting stkAAVEwstETHBPTv2 to 2,500 AAVE, releasing about 14,400 AAVE of unused approval.
Aave moves PT-srUSDe-22OCT2026 risk oracle stack to protocol-owned setup An Aave ARFC says the PT Risk Oracle stack for PT-srUSDe-22OCT2026 is now deployed on Ethereum and ready for activation, shifting discount-rate and eMode parameter updates to a protocol-owned pipeline using three Chainlink CRE workflows. The activation AIP would register two predeployed agents, grant them RISK_ADMIN roles, and cap moves at 100 bps for the discount rate and 50 bps for eMode parameters, with 48-72 hour delays and governance able to disable either agent.
Aave V4 deposits top $800M for the first time Aave’s live onchain dashboard shows V4 user deposits at $806 million, up 30% in seven days and marking a new all-time high. The protocol crossed $500 million on Aug. 19 and $600 million on Aug. 21 before moving above $800 million six days later, with the EtherFi Cash market on Optimism ranking as V4’s second-largest market at $257 million.
Aave Horizon proposal seeks to add Midas’ mWIN as collateral An ARFC has been filed to onboard mWIN, a tokenized fixed-income portfolio managed by Wellington Management and issued by Midas, as collateral on Aave Horizon. The proposal says mWIN launched on Ethereum mainnet with $15 million in TVL within days, offers $10 million in dedicated instant USDC redemption capacity via Midas, and could expand Horizon’s real-world asset collateral into actively managed credit pending LlamaRisk review and a Snapshot vote.
TokenLogic proposes phased Aave stablecoin rate changes Aave service provider TokenLogic has proposed raising Slope1 by 50 bps on 22 stablecoin reserves, lifting Base USDC by 25 bps, and increasing the USDe base borrowing rate toward 5.25% to align it with Ethena staking yields. To absorb debt migrating out of USDe, it also proposes a temporary 2% increase in optimal utilization for Ethereum Core and Plasma USDC/USDT, freeing about $116M in extra borrowing capacity, with changes executed in 10 bps steps via Risk Stewards.
Aave proposal seeks to add BTC.b to V4 Core on Ethereum Aave Labs has submitted a Direct-to-AIP proposal to onboard BTC.b to the Aave V4 Core Instance on Ethereum, extending the bridged Bitcoin asset beyond its existing listings on Aave V3 Core and Aave V4 Core on Avalanche. Risk parameters and the final configuration are still pending from Aave’s Risk Service Providers before the proposal moves to an AIP vote for onchain confirmation.
YT-reUSD trade triggers $36.4M in Morpho liquidations About $36.4 million in liquidations hit Morpho early Tuesday after one wallet heavily bought YT-reUSD on Pendle, pushing the paired PT-reUSD down roughly 3% and wiping out borrowers who had used PT-reUSD as collateral with less than 3% headroom. Pendle said the price feed worked as designed, while Steakhouse Financial said lenders took no losses, no bad debt was created, and reUSD itself was unaffected.
CITI Protocol raises $11 million for on-chain structured products CITI Protocol said Aug. 25 it raised $11 million across seed and pre-Series A rounds from Dragonfly, Jump Crypto, CMT Digital, Stratified Capital, Adaverse and Mirana to expand infrastructure for issuing and operating on-chain structured financial products. Its first platform, Benzo, currently runs four vaults with $30 million in TVL, and the company said it plans to launch thematic portfolio products next.
Aave proposes rotating Governance Emergency Guardian signers Aave Labs has proposed rotating the Aave Governance Emergency Guardian signer set while keeping its 5-of-9 threshold, Safe addresses and cancellation powers unchanged. The ARFC would replace only the underlying nine signers, disclose signing addresses but not public identities, and require hardware-wallet use, out-of-band verification and independent transaction checks to improve operational readiness and security.
LlamaRisk proposes Aave V4 Round 14 cap increase LlamaRisk has recommended a fourteenth round of Aave V4 cap changes after deposits across five hubs rose 6% to about $419.8M since Aug. 19. The proposal would add roughly $46M in Add Cap capacity, lifting total market capacity to about $1.01B, with the biggest increases aimed at the Global Dollar Hub after syrupUSDG and USDG lines refilled within days and Avalanche Core USDC hit its cap. If approved after review, the adjustments would be applied by the Aave Security Council.
Ethena and FalconX launch $1B USDe-backed institutional lending facility Ethena and FalconX have launched a $1 billion secured lending facility that will use assets backing USDe to fund overcollateralized loans for institutional borrowers. FalconX will originate and service the loans through a special purpose vehicle, while qualified third-party custodians hold collateral worth more than each loan and Ethena keeps a first-priority security interest over facility assets.
Centrifuge adds Symbiotic liquidity to $1.6B in tokenized funds Centrifuge has integrated Symbiotic’s Liquid Lane across three tokenized funds with about $1.6 billion in AUM, giving eligible holders immediate USDC liquidity instead of waiting for standard redemptions. The rollout covers Janus Henderson’s JAAA and JTRSY, plus NYLIM’s HYB, using Symbiotic’s onchain RFQ marketplace for market makers to fill redemption requests.
Cardano DReps clear approval threshold for 120M ADA DeFi proposal Cardano’s DRep community pushed the 120 million ADA Cardano Prime proposal past its approval threshold on August 12, clearing a key step for a 12-month DeFi growth program backed by the Cardano Foundation. The plan, run by Alpha Growth under Intersect oversight, targets lifting Cardano DeFi TVL from about $90 million to $200 million, with funding released in stages and unused funds returned to the treasury if targets are missed.
Aave TVL still down 43% after April KelpDAO hack Aave’s total value locked has only partly recovered from the April 18 KelpDAO exploit, standing at about $14.9 billion versus $26.4 billion before the attack and 67% below its October 2025 peak of $45.9 billion. The protocol itself was not hacked, but attackers used stolen rsETH as collateral to borrow ETH, leaving Aave and Compound with an estimated $246 million in combined bad debt.
Securitize proposes HINC as first sub-investment-grade collateral on Aave Horizon Securitize has filed an ARFC to onboard HINC, the Neuberger Securitize High Income Tokenized Fund, to Aave Horizon on Ethereum as supply-only collateral, with USDC, GHO and RLUSD borrowable against it. If approved, HINC would become Horizon’s first sub-investment-grade credit collateral, adding a high-yield bond and CLO-backed fund to a market now centered on Treasuries and investment-grade assets.
Aave proposal targets PAXGy listing on V4 Global Dollar Hub Aave Labs has submitted a proposal to add PAXGy to the Aave V4 Global Dollar Hub on Ethereum, expanding the venue’s existing PAXG exposure with a yield-bearing gold-backed asset. PAXGy is a Paxos Labs vault share token backed by deposited PAXG, with final risk parameters and asset configuration to be set by Risk Service Providers before the plan can move from ARFC to Snapshot and Security Council execution.
Active RWA deployment in DeFi nears $4 billion DefiLlama data shows tokenized real-world assets actively used inside DeFi reached $3.98 billion on Aug. 18, up from $650.88 million a year ago and about $12 million three years ago. Of $34.55 billion in total tokenized RWA issuance, about 11.5% is actually deployed onchain, with private credit leading at $2.13 billion, while large treasury products like BlackRock’s BUIDL show just $18 million in DeFi and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI shows zero utilization.
NAVI Protocol launches NAVI Prime on Sui for institutional lending NAVI Protocol has launched NAVI Prime, a Sui-based lending framework aimed at funds and other professional investors seeking more transparency and control over capital management. The company said the product is built for institutional requirements, while DefiLlama tracks about $124.6 million in total value locked across NAVI Protocol on Sui as of Aug. 17.
Compound Foundation hires ex-Coinbase, Anchorage, NEAR and Maple execs Compound Foundation has appointed four executives from Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital, the NEAR Foundation and Maple Finance as it deploys a $52 million, DAO-approved two-year budget to turn the DeFi lending protocol into credit infrastructure for banks and asset managers. COMP holders passed the plan in Proposal 582 on May 10 with 1.88 million votes in favor, while the Foundation says its first institutional product will launch within weeks.
Aave proposal would shift GHO Risk Council to 2-of-3 entity Safe setup An Aave ARFC proposes changing the GHO Stewards admin signer set from 3-of-4 individual signers to a 2-of-3 configuration using entity Safes controlled by Aave Labs, LlamaRisk and TokenLogic. The Council Safe address would stay the same, so no governance payload or steward contract change is required; if community consensus and a YAE Snapshot follow, the current signers would execute the update directly.
Aave shifts Horizon asset listings to DAO governance Aave said Aave Horizon will no longer use its launch-era delegated listing model, with all new asset onboardings now routed through the DAO’s standard Governance Framework v2 process, effective immediately. Each listing must go through the Asset Listing ARFC flow with a business case, LlamaRisk risk assessment, Aave Labs technical assessment, and a binding Snapshot vote, giving Aave DAO direct authority over Horizon collateral decisions.
Lido DAO launches NEST automated LDO buybacks Lido DAO has launched NEST, a fully onchain mechanism that uses treasury surplus from protocol staking revenue to buy LDO via CoW Swap. At launch, NEST starts in Treasury mode with a $40 million annualized revenue baseline, routes 50% of daily surplus to buybacks, and is capped at $50,000 per day and $10 million per rolling year. If surplus turns negative, purchases pause automatically until revenue recovers.
Cardano approves 120M ADA DeFi push as OCC opens bank path for crypto firms Cardano’s community approved the Alpha Growth Prime proposal, allocating 120 million ADA to boost DeFi liquidity and TVL after multiple governance rounds and added safeguards. The move came as the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved Bitcoin and crypto firms to become national banks, which Cardano DRep Chris O said could open regulated yield-bearing ADA products regardless of the CLARITY Act’s outcome.
LlamaRisk proposes $100M cap increase for Aave V4 after deposits hit $396M LlamaRisk has recommended a 13th round of Add Cap and Draw Cap changes for Aave V4, adding about $100M of capacity and lifting total market capacity to roughly $952M from $852M. The move follows a 15% rise in deposits to about $396M after Round 12, with the Global Dollar Hub at capacity and Avalanche demand accelerating; proposed increases center on Ethereum Core, the Maple syrupUSDG spoke, and Avalanche’s sAVAX and WAVAX markets.
Ethena taps FalconX for overcollateralized stablecoin lending Ethena said Aug. 14 it has appointed FalconX as an institutional lending partner and will provide a revolving senior secured credit facility through a FalconX vehicle to buy crypto-backed institutional loan receivables. Ethena will hold a first-priority security interest over the vehicle’s assets, adding an overcollateralized stablecoin credit facility to the assets backing its synthetic dollar business; the facility size and pricing were not disclosed.
Llamalend posts broad weekly growth as TVL climbs to $164M Curve’s lending protocol Llamalend grew across every major metric in the week to Aug. 13: TVL rose 12.3% to $164M, supplied funds jumped 22.7% to $77.1M, borrowing increased 13.3% to $97.7M, and open loans reached 1,094. Curve also launched the svZCHF/crvUSD market on Llamalend V2 on Aug. 12 with a 500,000 crvUSD borrow cap.
LlamaRisk proposes Aave V3 cap cuts across four networks LlamaRisk recommended lowering supply and borrow caps on selected Aave V3 reserves across Plasma, Mantle, Avalanche and Arbitrum, saying current limits leave excess headroom over demand while still preserving room for growth. The biggest proposed change is Plasma sUSDe’s supply cap, cut to 225 million from 450 million; the updates are set to be implemented through the Risk Steward process.
Uniswap redirects test-token creator fees to buy-and-burn contract Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said the team has renounced all creator fees tied to tokens created during “Uniswap employee testing” for Pools after the tokens were discovered, redirecting past and future fees to an automated buyback-and-burn contract. TradePools said the fees are released as ETH that can be claimed by burning the corresponding token; Adams did not name the tokens or say how much had accrued.
Robinhood Chain hits record transactions and TVL as USDe surges Robinhood Chain averaged 11.6 million daily transactions last week, up about 30% week over week and its highest since launch, while TVL rose 32% to $473 million, The Block reported on Aug. 11. Daily active accounts increased just 3.3% and stayed 11% below the July 16 peak, suggesting heavier use by existing users rather than new inflows. Ethena’s USDe jumped to $253 million, about 43% of stablecoin supply, from $17 million a month earlier.
Ripple backs XRPL lending and vault amendments in validator vote Ripple’s validator has voted for two XRP Ledger amendments that would add single-asset vaults and fixed-term institutional lending at the protocol level. XLS-65 would let users pool one asset such as XRP or RLUSD into vaults, while XLS-66 would use that liquidity for fixed-term loans with off-chain credit checks and on-chain servicing, repayments and defaults; both still need separate validator approval for activation.
LlamaRisk proposes Aave V3 cap cuts across four networks LlamaRisk has recommended lowering multiple Aave V3 supply and borrow caps on Plasma, Mantle, Avalanche and Arbitrum after its latest reserve review found excess headroom over current demand. The biggest proposed changes include cutting Plasma sUSDe’s supply cap from 450,000,000 to 225,000,000 and Arbitrum WETH’s supply cap from 240,000 to 150,000, with the updates set to be implemented through Aave’s Risk Steward process.
Curve launches Llamalend V2 on Ethereum mainnet Curve rolled out Llamalend V2 on Ethereum in July, activating sDOLA and sfrxUSD markets on 21 July and deploying syrupUSDC on 24 July, with caps of $12.4M, $28.4M and $51.8M. The launch came as average crvUSD borrow rates fell from 5.6% to 2.0%, helping borrower-minted crvUSD rise 29% to $36.7M and collateral backing those loans jump 43% to $70.5M.
Hyperliquid revenue falls for a fourth straight quarter as builder markets take half of fees Hyperliquid’s open interest hit a 2026 high above $11 billion on July 13 and 30-day perp volume reached nearly $178 billion, but gross protocol revenue fell to about $202 million in Q2 2026 from a $357 million peak in Q3 2025, DefiLlama data shows. The gap is HIP-3: builder-deployed markets have grown from about 2% of perp volume at the start of 2026 to roughly half now, and can keep up to 50% of trading fees.
Mantle’s Super Portal goes live on Solana with Chainlink CCIP Mantle launched its Super Portal on Solana on Aug. 6, secured by Chainlink CCIP, marking the first time Mantle’s capital markets infrastructure has been opened to an external chain and Solana liquidity. MNT traded at $0.4273 on Aug. 8, up 2.2%, after breaking a descending trendline that had capped rallies since May, with RSI at 56.83 showing a second bullish divergence.
Uniswap launches Pools memecoin platform on Robinhood Chain Uniswap Labs opened pools.trade on Robinhood Chain shortly after 5 p.m. ET on Aug. 5, about 4.5 hours after its public countdown expired, marking its push into memecoin launches. The top token on debut was FRONG, which had been minted six days earlier by the same contracts later used for Pools; by 6:56 p.m. ET it was up 31.9% on the day with a $12.1 million fully diluted valuation, while Uniswap said the product is meant for “speculative, highly volatile assets that can go to zero.”
Aave V4 security council applies new cap changes after deposit growth Aave V4 has implemented another round of Add Cap and Draw Cap adjustments via the Aave Security Council on Ethereum and Avalanche, as deposits climbed to about $185 million and some reserves hit full utilization. LlamaRisk’s latest recommendation adds roughly $75 million in Add Cap capacity, lifting the ceiling from about $392 million to $467 million, with frxUSD and USDG on Core/Main both raised to 20 million.
Aave moves to add PT-USDe-22OCT2026 as collateral on Monad A proposal has been put forward to onboard Pendle’s PT-USDe-22OCT2026 as collateral on the Aave V3 Monad instance via the Direct to AIP process. The token’s Pendle pool on Monad currently has about $58,000 in liquidity, 12.6K PT outstanding and zero trading volume in the last session, while the matching sUSDe market holds $13.0 million; risk parameters and a dedicated E-Mode setup are still to be provided before an AIP vote.
LlamaRisk backs Aave deprecation of 50 reserves and six low-use markets LlamaRisk’s July update says it published a deprecation plan for 50 Aave V3 reserves and 21 matured Pendle PTs, covering $85.3M in supply and $11.5M in debt, alongside winding down six low-adoption markets — Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos — with $12.8M in supply and $4.1M in debt. The proposal pairs reserve freezes, cap cuts to 1 and fixed-price oracles to reduce Aave’s risk surface.
DEXs take record 24% share of spot crypto trading in July Decentralized exchanges captured 24% of spot crypto trading volume in July, a record high and up from 17% a year earlier, The Block reported. The gain was driven mainly by shrinking activity on centralized exchanges as total spot volume fell to $670 billion, the lowest in 12 months, from a $2.23 trillion peak, while traders increasingly moved to on-chain venues.
Zcash jumps near $494 as Nym adopts Ironwood shielded payments Zcash (ZEC) rose nearly 5% on Aug. 3 to a session high near $494, pushing its market cap back above $8 billion, after Nym adopted Zcash’s new Ironwood shielded pool for direct end-to-end ZEC payments on its network. The move was presented as a key privacy-focused DeFi integration, with added momentum from Zcash’s new retroactive grants program tied to coinholder voting.
Flap tops Pump.fun in daily revenue for the first time BNB Chain launchpad Flap generated $1.18 million in revenue on Aug. 1, narrowly beating $1.10 million for the entire Pump family, including pump.fun, PumpSwap and its trading terminal, per DefiLlama. The jump followed a sharp climb from $28,343 on July 19 and coincided with the relaunch of memecoin 币安人生 ("Binance Life") on Flap, while nearly all of Flap’s Aug. 1 revenue came from BNB Chain.
RWA perps overtake crypto on Hyperliquid for first time Real-world asset perpetuals made up more than half of Hyperliquid’s trading volume for two straight weeks in July, the first time stock, commodity and index contracts out-traded crypto on the platform. RWA perps handled $25.1 billion, or 52% of $48.2 billion total volume, in the week of July 13–19, and stayed above 50% the following week as single-stock markets led the surge.
FXRP added as collateral in Sentora’s $280M RLUSD vault on Morpho Flare said its FXRP token can now be used as collateral in Sentora’s institutionally managed RLUSD vault on Morpho Blue, in what it called the first time a version of XRP has been accepted in an institutional lending vault on Ethereum mainnet. The August 3 approval opens a dedicated FXRP/RLUSD market, letting users borrow RLUSD against XRP exposure without selling, with no whitelist at launch.
Aave proposal targets PT-USDe-22OCT2026 listing on Monad A direct-to-AIP proposal by TokenLogic would add Pendle’s PT-USDe-22OCT2026 as collateral on the Aave V3 Monad instance, aiming to support stablecoin reserve utilization and fixed-yield borrowing strategies. Risk service providers still need to deliver the oracle setup, risk parameters and a dedicated E-Mode configuration before the AIP goes to a final on-chain vote.
