Aave has become the first DeFi protocol to surpass $50 billion in net deposits, marking a significant milestone in the decentralized finance sector. This figure represents the total collateral assets across 34 on-chain markets, minus outstanding loans. Aave's founder highlighted the increasing adoption of the protocol by traditional financial institutions as a lending infrastructure. This achievement underscores the broader recovery trend in DeFi, with the industry's total locked value (TVL) nearing $120 billion since December 2024. Aave's current TVL stands at approximately $29 billion, accounting for nearly half of the sector. The Aave governance community is actively working on upgrades, including Aave V4, which aims to introduce account abstraction, native real-world asset vaults, and support for Bitcoin Layer2 assets, while expanding the stablecoin GHO to additional blockchain platforms.