Key takeaways AAVE slides roughly 6% as selling pressure intensifies Token breaks below $140 despite recent protocol expansion Traders watch $130 support and $150 recovery resistance AAVE has emerged among the weaker major decentralized finance tokens on October 24, falling roughly 6% as selling pressure overwhelms recent developments across its lending ecosystem. The token traded at $140.12 at 11:46 UTC, down 5.29% over 24 hours, before subsequent market readings showed prices approaching $135. The decline extends a difficult week for AAVE, which traded above $154 earlier in October. The selloff comes just days after Aave expanded its institutional lending markets, raising a familiar question for DeFi investors: why can a protocol continue growing while its governance token loses value? Why Is AAVE Price Falling Today? AAVE's latest decline pushed the token below several important short-term technical indicators, reinforcing the market's bearish momentum. Its 20-day moving average was higher at approximately $159.53, demonstrating how far the token had moved below its recent trading range. The initial breakdown below $140 also placed AAVE beneath a lower Bollinger Band reference of $140.63 recorded on October 22. However, no confirmed protocol exploit, emergency governance decision or token-specific announcement has been established as the direct cause of the October 24 decline. The weakness appears consistent with broader cryptocurrency selling and pressure on leveraged trading positions, although the precise contribution of each factor remains uncertain. Earlier Aave market volatility demonstrated how governance disputes and token prices can move in different directions. Aave Expands Lending Markets Despite Token Selloff The weakness contrasts with several recent announcements involving the protocol's lending infrastructure. On October 22, Aave V4 introduced three independently curated markets supporting Ripple's RLUSD, PayPal's PYUSD and Origin's OUSD. The institutional lending expansion brought Sentora into Aave's new architecture as an external market curator. Meanwhile, Babylon Labs has advanced a proposal that could allow users to borrow stablecoins against Bitcoin held directly on its native blockchain. That Bitcoin collateral initiative remains subject to governance approval and further technical assessment. Neither development guarantees additional demand for AAVE tokens. The protocol's buyback strategy is another important consideration. Although Aave introduced revenue-funded token purchases in 2025, purchases were paused following April's rsETH-related disruption. That incident previously triggered a sharp AAVE selloff , illustrating how lending risks can influence investor confidence even when the platform continues operating. AAVE Price Prediction: Can the Token Recover Toward $150? AAVE's immediate recovery challenge is reclaiming $140, followed by the $149–$150 region where several moving averages converge. A sustained move above $150 could improve short-term momentum and bring $155–$160 into focus, although these are conditional technical targets rather than confirmed forecasts. If selling continues, the $130 area becomes an important psychological reference, with a deeper decline potentially bringing $120 into consideration. Institutional analysts have previously outlined considerably higher long-term scenarios. Grayscale projected a potential $175 valuation by 2027, while Standard Chartered published a much more ambitious forecast tied to long-term DeFi adoption.
