Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Aave raised $25 million from various investment entities. These include Blockchain.com, Blockchain Capital, and Standard Crypto. They will also join the protocol governance of Aave.
We are excited to announce that @blockchaincap @standardcrypto @blockchain ventures have invested into the future of the Aave Protocol and will be participating in protocol governance. https://t.co/fOGjZH73D3
— Aave (@AaveAave) October 12, 2020
According to CEO Stani Kulechov, Aave will use the funds to expand the team so that they may be able to cater to the Asian markets, as well as to “bring DeFi closer to institutional use”.
Many Twitterians who support Aave lauded the project for this feat, with some even claiming that it remains undervalued even though it “does way more” than other DeFi protocols including MakerDAO.
As of the moment, Aave’s total value locked (TVL) is at $1.15 billion, according to DeFi Pulse. It is now ranked third in the list of top DeFi protocols, followed closely by Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) at $1.13 billion.
Aave is a Finnish word that translates to English as “ghost”. It describes itself as an open-source and non-custodial lending protocol based on the Ethereum blockchain. Despite hitting the headlines multiple times this year, Aave was actually created in 2017 with the name ETHLend.
The platform initially used the LEND token, even though it has already created its own AAVE token, which has already been listed by crypto exchanges including Gemini.
The Future is #DeFi. Trading $AAVE @AaveAave via limit orders is now available on @Gemini.
— Tyler Winklevoss (@tylerwinklevoss) October 8, 2020
The team is working toward a token migration from the former token to the latter. Accordingly, the token migration will be gradual “unless the governance votes on a deadline.” Specifically, the ratio would be 100:1. More so, the total token supply is 16 million AAVE.