Aave (AAVE) perpetual market

Aave is a leading decentralized lending protocol, launched in 2020 after evolving from an earlier project called ETHLend founded by Stani Kulechov in 2017. It lets users supply crypto assets into liquidity pools to earn yield and borrow against collateral without a bank or intermediary, with interest rates set algorithmically by supply and demand. Aave pioneered features that became standard in decentralized finance, including flash loans, uncollateralized loans that must be borrowed and repaid within a single transaction, and it supports borrowing across many assets and networks. Its AAVE token is used for governance and as a backstop that can be drawn on to cover shortfalls in the system. As one of the largest and longest-running money markets in crypto, Aave holds billions in deposits and is treated as core, battle-tested DeFi infrastructure.