According to Woofun AI, BTC has successfully broken through the key resistance level of $83,000, significantly reviving bullish market sentiment. As long as the asset does not decline below the $82,000 to $83,000 support zone on high volume and maintains its position on higher timeframes, the bearish thesis is difficult to sustain.
Notably, the altcoins that have outperformed the broader market in this rally mostly possess genuine income-generating capabilities. Tokens such as HYPE, LIT, ENA, and UNI have all posted substantial gains, and the income narrative is becoming the core focus of capital pursuit. When screening on-chain projects with profitability, the DeFiLlama Revenue dashboard is a core research tool. By sorting by 30-day revenue, investors can quickly identify high-yield protocols.
Taking Aave, which ranks 28th by 30-day revenue, as an example, its protocol dashboard reveals the linkage between TVL, AAVE price, and revenue metrics. Data shows that all three indicators are currently significantly below their October 2025 highs. Part of the reason for this gap is the rsETH exploit that occurred in April, which caused notable outflows from Aave's TVL. However, the deeper reason lies in the overall bear market cycle the market has been in since last year, with the vast majority of decentralized applications seeing their TVL decline, and Aave was no exception.
According to data compiled by Woofun AI, as the recent market environment has improved, Aave's TVL, revenue, and token price have all begun to recover in tandem over the past two to three months, and this trend reversal forms the cornerstone for deeper research. Before buying income-type tokens, three dimensions need to be evaluated: the growth expectations for protocol revenue, the benefit mechanisms for token holders, and the presence of major catalysts.
If BTC continues to rise, Aave is expected to continue attracting new liquidity as it has over the past two months. Since Aave's user deposits include a large amount of wrapped BTC tokens and ETH, rising crypto asset prices will directly drive up TVL and protocol revenue. This reflexivity mechanism gives AAVE strong performance potential during uptrends.
Regarding the benefits for token holders, Aave previously had a buyback mechanism but was forced to suspend it after the rsETH exploit. However, Aave founder Stani confirmed on September 19 that the team is working on a proposal to restart buybacks, and the Aavenomics 3.0 upgrade plan also includes this arrangement. Although there is no clear timeline yet, the expectation of a tokenomics upgrade itself constitutes an important catalyst, enhancing AAVE's appeal to forward-looking investors. Additionally, the Aave App is about to open to the public, and this product-level development may also bring additional attention to the project.
Beyond fundamentals, mindshare and comparison with competitors are equally critical. The crypto market is essentially an attention economy, and the level of discussion a project generates on X (Twitter) directly affects its valuation. Searching for Aave shows that many non-official team accounts are also actively discussing it, indicating high community engagement. On the competitor front, Morpho has grown significantly faster than Aave in recent months, but the MORPHO token lacks a value capture mechanism, the protocol itself does not generate revenue, and the team has not indicated any near-term plans to change this. Therefore, between AAVE and MORPHO, the former is more investable due to its genuine revenue stream.
From the perspective of narrative alignment, the hottest narratives on X currently include AI, perpetual contract DEXs, privacy, and the income narrative. Although Aave has no direct connection to the first three, as a profitable on-chain business, it perfectly fits the income narrative, thereby gaining capital favor under specific market sentiment. Overall, AAVE is regarded as a suitable holding due to meeting conditions such as sustained revenue growth, clear product-market fit, active community, and imminent catalysts. DaanCrypto pointed out that buying such fundamentally solid altcoins during significant BTC drawdowns is an effective strategy for increasing exposure.
In industry news, Aerodrome announced plans to launch a new Aero DEX on October 21. The U.S. SEC allowed projects to conduct token buybacks in accordance with the law. Chainlink launched the CCIP 2.0 interoperability protocol. Aave V4 supports borrowing against Coinbase (COIN.US) tokenized stocks as collateral. Stacks founder Muneeb became the new CEO of Stacks Labs, and within 24 hours of the announcement, the STX price rose 30%. Lighter announced it will soon launch new products including options and Lighter EVM. The Hyperliquid team announced it will sell $320 million worth of HYPE through over-the-counter trading. Kinetiq announced a paid-claim airdrop. Jumper's ICO has launched, with a TGE planned for the fourth quarter. Moudinho launched a free crypto tool called stuckfunds that scans wallets for unclaimed cross-chain bridge withdrawals. Ethena announced it will stop USDe token incentives, which may signal the arrival of the final Season 6 airdrop. Open Standard launched a stablecoin called OUSD. Near Intents suffered an attack, losing $3.8 million. Bitwise launched the first U.S. Near spot ETF (NRR.US). Arcus, a perpetual contract DEX built by the original dYdX team, launched its S1 points program. These developments collectively outline the multidimensional evolution of the current Web3 ecosystem across compliance, technological innovation, and market competition.
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