Aave V4 now holds more than $1.75 billion in deposits, an all-time high for the newest version of the decentralized lending protocol. The growth represents a substantial increase from approximately $806 million in late August 2026.
Growth trajectory
Deposits have climbed steadily since V4's launch on Ethereum mainnet on March 30, 2026. The protocol passed $1 billion by September and cleared $1.5 billion in October before reaching its current level. Active loans on V4 topped $450 million in October, representing roughly 30% of the deposits supplied during that period.
V4 has since expanded to Optimism, Avalanche in July, and Base in October.
Where deposits are concentrated
The deposit growth is concentrated in a few specialized markets. EtherFi Cash on Optimism has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars during peak activity, while Circle's Arc blockchain has brought inflows of USDC and cirBTC. Base, the newest addition, has seen deposits ranging from $9 million to $25 million since going live in October.
Aave has also engaged external curators such as Sentora to set up and manage markets for particular user groups, allowing the protocol to serve niche segments without building every market directly.
V4 versus V3
V4 uses a hub-and-spoke liquidity model, where central hubs share liquidity across individual market spokes, each with separate risk settings. This architecture allows risky assets in one market to remain isolated from conservative markets in others.
V3 remains active with approximately $31 billion in deposits, running alongside V4. V4 holds less than 6% of V3's deposit base. By October 2026, Aave across all versions had processed $1.1 trillion in cumulative borrow volume.
Key considerations
V4's growth has occurred without forcing user migration, with deposits arriving through specific integrations that find the design useful. The concentration of deposits in a few key integrations remains a notable factor to monitor.
V4's architecture was built with support for tokenized real-world assets in mind, raising questions about pricing, liquidation, and regulation that differ from crypto-native collateral.
