Driven by bullish momentum across the market, Aave has achieved significant growth, becoming the asset with the largest increase among the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

Aave surged 34% in the past 24 hours, trading at $355 at the time of writing. The market cap of the leading lending protocol's native token has risen to $5.3 billion, making it the 31st largest cryptocurrency.



This is the first time Aave has broken the $350 mark since late August 2021.

Four main reasons for Aave's rise

First, the broader cryptocurrency market, including Bitcoin, began to rise immediately after Wednesday's U.S. Consumer Price Index report was released.

Investing.com data shows that the U.S. inflation rate rose 2.7% year-on-year in November, in line with expectations, up 0.1 percentage points from October's 2.6%.




Subsequently, according to CoinGecko data, as the global cryptocurrency market cap increased by 4% to $3.82 trillion, Bitcoin once again broke the $100,000 mark.

Secondly, a series of new developments have brought bullish sentiment to the second-largest decentralized finance protocol—Aave's total value locked in DeFi hovers around $22 billion.

According to crypto.news on Wednesday, Balancer announced a partnership with Aave to upgrade its decentralized exchange and automated portfolio management protocol to v3. The lending protocol will optimize Balancer v3's liquidity pools, allowing users to maximize returns.

In addition, after gaining community approval, Aave will launch on the Consensys-supported zk-rollup network Linea. This will enable Aave to scale and increase its transaction throughput at lower costs.

Third, President-elect Donald Trump's DeFi project World Liberty Financial accumulated $1 million worth of AAVE tokens at an average price of $297.8 earlier today.

Last but not least, as the price fell below the $260 mark on Monday, Aave's whale accumulation has strengthened. According to data from IntoTheBlock, on December 9, the net inflow of large holders of this asset reached 103,610 AAVE.





A sudden surge in whale inflows often triggers fear of missed opportunities among retail investors, which could potentially drive prices higher.


#AAVE $AAVE