Gate Research Institute: Aave TVL reaches a new high, surpassing $30 billion | Pump.Fun regains market share to take the top spot

Summary

1. ETH surged strongly, breaking through $3,400, while BTC's performance this week lagged behind altcoins.
2. USDT market cap surpasses 160 billion USD, setting a new historical high.
3. Orca plans to launch the Launchpad at the end of July or the beginning of August.
4. Aave TVL surpasses $30 billion, setting a new all-time high.
5. Pump.Fun returns to the Solana token issuance platform leader, with a market share of 46.9% in the past 24 hours.
6. Sui Q2 ecosystem performance is strong: TVL exceeds 2.5 billion USD, and trading volume increased by 30.54% year-on-year.

Market Interpretation

Market Commentary

• BTC Market —— This week BTC rose by 6.33%, overall performance lagging behind altcoins. After several breakthroughs of the 120,000 USD integer level, the K-line in the past 7 days has presented a "cup and handle" pattern, with the current BTC price near 118,000 USD, and there are still opportunities for upward breakthroughs ahead.
• ETH Market —— This week ETH surged by 20.77%, outperforming BTC and other mainstream cryptocurrencies. From the candlestick perspective, ETH is showing multiple bullish candles progressing together on the 1-hour chart, but a top doji has formed above the $3,400 mark, requiring investors to pay careful attention. It is currently in a high-level consolidation state, and may continue to target the key position of $3,500 in the future.
• Altcoins —— This week, altcoins have shown a significant upward trend, with a median increase of 12.31% among the Top 100 cryptocurrencies over the past 7 days. PENGU led the altcoin market with a rise of 99.40%, while Pi became the altcoin with the largest decline this week, dropping by over 5%.
• ETF and Contract Market —— In terms of ETF funds, BTC and ETH spot ETFs have achieved a net inflow of over 7 days, showing that institutional funds are optimistic about the market outlook. In terms of contracts, in the last 24 hours, BTC and ETH contracts have liquidated $73.79 million and $190 million, respectively.
• Macroeconomic Data —— On July 16, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Producer Price Index (PPI) report for June 2025, showing that the annual PPI for June in the U.S. recorded 2.3%, the lowest since September 2024, while market expectations were at 2.5%. This reflects a moderation in inflationary pressures on the producer side, with a slowdown in price growth momentum.
• Stablecoin —— The total market value of stablecoins has risen to $261.5 billion, with a significant inflow of off-exchange incremental funds.
• Gas Fee —— The price of ETH has surpassed $3,300, leading to a significant increase in Gas fees on the Ethereum network. As of July 17, the average Gas fee is 1.98 Gwei.

Popular Concepts

This week, the cryptocurrency industry has shown a significant upward trend, with increased optimistic sentiment in the market. The altcoin sector continues to rise. According to Coingecko data, the Solana Meme, Stablecoin Protocols, and Dex Aggregator segments have shown significant upward trends this week, rising by 29.4%, 29.2%, and 21.9% respectively over the past 7 days.

Solana Meme

The Solana Meme sector is a type of token and project derived from the decentralized ecosystem based on the Solana blockchain, rapidly rising due to its low transaction costs, high-speed transactions, and community-driven characteristics. These Meme coins typically have themes of humor, satire, or pop culture, attracting a large number of retail investors and community participants, quickly spreading through social media and on-chain activities. Solana's high-performance blockchain provides these projects with low fees and high throughput technical support, making it an important incubation platform for the Meme economy. — In the past 7 days, this sector has increased by 29.4%, with BONK and PENGU rising by 82.8% and 99.4%, respectively.

Stablecoin Protocol

The Stablecoin Protocol is a cryptocurrency framework designed to maintain value stability by pegging to fiat currencies or other assets, aiming to address the high volatility issues of traditional cryptocurrencies and provide reliable digital assets for global finance. Stablecoins ensure their value stability through collateralized or algorithmic mechanisms and are widely used in cross-border payments, crypto trading, and financial inclusion scenarios. Currently, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has exceeded $250 billion, and it is expected to continue growing rapidly in the coming years. They play a key role in emerging markets and decentralized finance (DeFi), facilitating low-cost and high-efficiency financial services. — In the past 7 days, this sector has risen by 29.2%, with ENA and CRV increasing by 27.3% and 67.3%, respectively.

DEX Aggregator

A DEX aggregator is a blockchain-based service that allows traders and investors to trade their cryptocurrencies on a single platform. DEX aggregators act as a unified browser for liquidity and prices in the DeFi world, allowing investors/traders to determine their trading and token swapping processes. DEX aggregators are quite different from DEXs. Essentially, they are trackers that search for the best liquidity pools to execute trades and prevent "slippage". Additionally, they connect hundreds of DEX liquidity pools, eliminating the persistent issue of limited liquidity, which often leads to slippage. — The sector has increased by 21.9% in the past 7 days, with 1INCH and CETUS rising by 51.3% and 23.0%, respectively.

This Week's Focus

USDT market capitalization breaks through 160 billion USD, setting a new historical high.

Tether's CEO Paolo Ardoino announced on the X platform that the market capitalization of USDT has surpassed $160 billion, setting a new record. He stated that USDT has significant practicality as a digital dollar for billions of people in emerging markets and developing countries. Furthermore, the market capitalization of USDT has increased 34 times since 2020 (from $4.7 billion to $160 billion), on-chain transaction volume has grown 74 times (from $14.8 billion per month to $1.1 trillion per month), and the number of users has increased 160 times (from 2.8 million to 450 million).

Tether (USDT) has reached a historic high in market capitalization, highlighting the important role of stablecoins in global finance. As a "digital dollar" for billions of people in emerging markets and developing countries, USDT promotes cross-border payments and financial inclusion with its stability. The rapid growth of USDT over the past five years demonstrates the swift adoption of stablecoins. In the future, with the development of blockchain technology and the optimization of the regulatory environment, USDT is expected to further expand its applications in areas such as cross-border e-commerce and international remittances.

Orca plans to launch Launchpad at the end of July or early August.

According to Blockworks reporter Jack Kubinec, the liquidity protocol Orca in the Solana ecosystem is planning to launch its new Launchpad at the end of July or early August. The biggest highlight of this product is that the Orca team has developed a new mechanism aimed at allowing real users to have an advantage over automated bots when participating in new token sales, enhancing fairness and user experience.

Orca's upcoming Launchpad marks an important advancement in fair token issuance within the Solana ecosystem, prioritizing genuine user participation with its new mechanism, enhancing user experience and market trust. This not only strengthens Orca's position as a core liquidity protocol in Solana but also attracts more projects and investors to the ecosystem. In the future, the Launchpad is expected to facilitate the rapid deployment of new tokens and foster the prosperity of the Solana ecosystem. Its innovative mechanism may serve as a reference for other blockchain platforms, but it must address technical and regulatory challenges to ensure long-term success.

Aethir and Credible collaborate to launch DePIN credit card

The decentralized GPU cloud network Aethir has partnered with the lending protocol Credible Finance to launch the first DePIN credit card and loan product. This product allows ATH (Aethir's native token) holders to stake tokens to obtain stablecoin credit lines without the need to liquidate assets. Users on the Solana chain can directly use ATH or stablecoins for consumption through a prepaid card.

The first DePIN credit card and loan product launched in collaboration between Aethir and Credible Finance marks the deep integration of decentralized finance with real-world consumption scenarios. Its significance lies in providing ATH token holders with an innovative way to access stablecoin credit without liquidating assets, greatly enhancing the utility and liquidity of the token. This not only improves the convenience of consumption for users on the Solana chain but also opens up new scenarios for DePIN applications. In the future, this product is expected to attract more users and capital into the Aethir ecosystem, promoting the popularization and development of decentralized GPU networks. At the same time, its model may incentivize other DeFi projects to explore the integration of on-chain assets and offline consumption, but it is essential to remain vigilant about credit risks and regulatory compliance challenges to ensure the sustainability of the product.

Highlight Data

Aave TVL breaks 30 billion USD, setting a new historical high

According to DefiLlama data, the total value locked (TVL) in the decentralized lending protocol Aave recently surpassed $30.277 billion, setting a new all-time high record. At the same time, two days ago, its net deposit total exceeded $50 billion for the first time, making it the first protocol in the DeFi lending space to reach this milestone.

The continuous growth of Aave's TVL is mainly attributed to the accelerated entry of institutional funds, product innovations driven by technological upgrades such as Aave V4, and the multi-chain expansion of the GHO stablecoin, which not only enhances user trust and fund stickiness but also transforms Aave from a single lending protocol into a multi-chain collaborative DeFi infrastructure. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that the ongoing expansion of the on-chain ecosystem and the accelerated integration of fintech with traditional financial institutions are important factors driving growth. Currently, the Aave community is advancing several upgrade proposals, including Aave V4, with plans to introduce account abstraction, native RWA (real-world assets) vaults, support for Bitcoin Layer 2 assets, and deploy the GHO stablecoin to more blockchain networks.

Pump.Fun returns to the Solana token issuance platform leader, with a market share of 46.9% in the last 24 hours.

According to the market share data from Jupiter, Pump.fun currently ranks first among Solana token issuance platforms with a market share of 46.9%, while Letsbonk ranks second with 44.1%, with both platforms almost evenly splitting the market, far ahead of the third place Believe (3.74%). Dune data also shows that Letsbonk.Fun issued a total of 19,060 Meme coins in the last 24 hours, slightly higher than Pump.fun's 16,155, with platform activity continuing to soar.

The token issuance market on the Solana chain is entering a "dual oligopoly" pattern, with the rapid rise of Pump.fun and Letsbonk not only leading the trend of Meme coin issuance but also putting pressure on established DeFi protocols in terms of transaction fee revenue and activity. According to DefiLlama data, the Meme coin issuance platforms in the Solana ecosystem have seen intense competition in the past 24 hours. Pump.fun set a record of $1.61 million in transaction fee revenue, ranking 15th across the network; Letsbonk closely followed with revenue of $1.24 million, ranking 17th, both surpassing established protocols like EigenLayer, Sky, and Orca, showcasing impressive performance.

Sui Q2 ecosystem performs strongly: TVL surpasses 2.5 billion USD, trading volume increases by 30.54% year-on-year.

According to the DeFi report for the second quarter of 2025 released by the Sui Foundation, the Sui ecosystem has shown strong growth momentum this quarter: the total TVL across the chain reached a new high of $2.555 billion on May 21, and has since stabilized above $2 billion; the on-chain transaction volume increased by 30.54% year-on-year. In the BTCfi sector, the launch of assets such as sBTC and xBTC has expanded the native application space for Bitcoin on the Sui chain. At the same time, the SUI ETF launched by 21Shares is approaching the listing stage on NASDAQ, indicating a clear signal for institutional entry.

Driven by the launch of the BTCfi product, the integration of SUI ETF, and optimizations of leading protocols, several protocols have performed remarkably this quarter, such as the lending platform Suilend and the yield platform Momentum, both achieving significant growth in users and capital. Among them, the leading DEX project on Sui, Turbos Finance, set a new daily trading volume record of $47.8 million yesterday, with the SUI/USDC trading pair contributing over $40 million, achieving the best liquidity and activity in history.

Gate New Listings

The IPO project to watch this week is: Vision Vision (VSN) is a token in the Web3 ecosystem, designed to serve ordinary users through wallet rewards, fee discounts, and cross-chain functionalities, while providing institutions with MiCAR-compliant security token solutions. The core mechanism is dynamic issuance and income-driven destruction under on-chain governance, balancing usability and sustainability.

Preparation

• Gate account: Register and complete user verification;
• Recharge Assets: Ensure that there is enough VSN and USDT in the account, this Launchpool supports staking in both currencies;

Participate in Staking

• Time window: Until July 23, 2025, 20:00 (UTC+8)
• Steps to operate: First, log in to Gate and go to the 【Launchpool】 page; second, select the VSN project and click 【Participate Now】; finally, enter the staking amount and confirm to participate.
• Total mining reward: 409,091 VSN
• Annual yield: up to 2347.49%

Financing Weekly Report

According to RootData, from July 11 to July 17, 2025, a total of 10 crypto projects announced the completion of financing or mergers and acquisitions, covering multiple tracks such as infrastructure, token issuance platforms, CeFi, and tools, demonstrating the market's ongoing focus on underlying capacity building and user application expansion. Below is a brief introduction to the top three projects ranked by financing scale this week:

Pump.Fun

Completed a public sale of tokens worth 500 million dollars on July 12, taking only 12 minutes.

Pump.fun is a Memecoin issuance platform that allows users to launch immediately tradable currencies without the need to seed liquidity.

Upexi

Announced on July 11 that it has completed a total of $200 million in private financing, including the issuance of $50 million in common stock and $150 million in convertible bonds.

Upexi Inc. is a platform company focused on consumer data, which went public on NASDAQ in 2021. The company accelerates the growth of Amazon and e-commerce businesses by integrating consumer data with the vertical supply chain. Recently, Upexi announced it will develop a financial strategy based on Solana, planning to increase its holdings and stake SOL assets to expand its presence in the on-chain finance sector.

Hilbert Group

Announced on July 15 the completion of a 300 million Swedish Krona Bitcoin loan for corporate crypto treasury strategy.

Hilbert Group is an investment company focused on quantitative algorithm trading strategies in the digital asset market, whose main business is managing the assets of its algorithmic quantitative trading funds.

Attention Next Week

Token Unlock

According to data from Tokenomist, the market will see significant unlocks of some important tokens in the next 7 days (2025.7.18 - 2025.7.24). The top 3 unlocks are as follows:

• TRUMP will unlock approximately $890 million worth of tokens in the next 7 days, accounting for 45.3% of the total locked amount.
• FTN will unlock approximately $90.2 million in the next 7 days, accounting for 4.6% of the total locked amount,
• ZRO will unlock tokens worth approximately $56.3 million in the next 7 days, accounting for 23.2% of the circulating supply.
  Reference Source

• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
• Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/
• Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
• Coinglass, https://www.coinglass.com/LiquidationData
• CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/02/adp-jobs-report-june-2025.html
• Coinmarketcap, https://coinmarketcap.com/view/stablecoin/
• etherscan, https://etherscan.io/gastracker
• Coingecko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories
• X, https://x.com/paoloardoino/status/1945454937145495862
• X, https://x.com/whosknave/status/1945463174943138117
• Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2025/07/16/aethir-and-credible-introduce-depin-powered-credit-card
• DefiLlama, https://defillama.com/protocol/aave
• Jupiter, https://jup.ag/pro?tab=launchpads
• Sui Foundation, https://blog.sui.io/q2-2025-defi-roundup/
• Gate, https://www.gate.com/launchpool/VSN?pid=339
• Rootdata, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
• Tokenomist, https://tokenomist.ai/

Disclaimer Investing in the cryptocurrency market involves high risks, and users are advised to conduct independent research and fully understand the nature of the assets and products purchased before making any investment decisions. Gate does not take responsibility for any losses or damages resulting from such investment decisions.