Aave Takes Aim at Banks, Fintechs with New Aave App

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors fall another 4-5% continuing downtrend; BTC at $91,200

• Bitcoin officially wipes out 2025 YTD gains, now red

• CBOE rolling out perps-like continuous futures for BTC and ETH

• White House evaluating major IRS rule to evaluate foreign crypto holdings

• Trump Hotels to tokenize the development of its latest Maldives property

There’s a major new player entering the neobank space.

And this time, from a very trusted name in DeFi.

Aave rolled out its new “Aave App” yesterday, as a consumer-facing savings product that looks and feels like a neobank.

The reasons to deposit and use the Aave app are pretty clear:

• Up to 9% yield on savings

• $1M in balance protection (compared to $250,000 at FDIC-insured banks)

• 12,000 supported banks and cards

It also offers other “fintech” features like automated savings, a compounding visualizer for its yield tracking and more, along with state-of-the-art” account security and recovery

The app is launching in early access on iOS, with Android and web versions “coming soon.”

For those unfamiliar, Aave is one of the most established and trusted players in Ethereum DeFi, boasting $30B+ billion in total deposits at time of writing.

“I don’t think people realize just how big this is for the industry.
A DeFi app is offering insurance on assets of up to $1 million.
The average Bank insures funds $250,000 per depositor.
Offering a sleek app + protecting user funds = Onboarding non crypto native users.
Aave may just turn into the RobinHood of Lending.
Big win for safe DeFi.” – Emperor Osmo, on X

“With the announcement of Aave App, Aave directly competes with banks (and neo banks) by offering a better yield on deposits to the common user.
But how competitive are Aave rates historically?
We analysed Aave stablecoin APYs and compared with T-Bills across three monetary-policy regimes…
Across all three, Aave stablecoin APYs outperform T-bills, NSR, and MMR on average. Aave consistently beats NSR and MMR throughout and while T-bills occasionally surpass Aave, those periods are shorter, rarer, and offer a smaller spread than the stretches where Aave yields are higher.
In other words: the valleys are smaller than the peaks, which is why Aave maintains a structurally higher average.” Sealaunch Intelligence, on X

This launch hits at a bigger shift: neobanks rising and challenging in the fintech space.

Fintech apps have already been chipping away at traditional banks for a decade by offering cleaner UX, mobile-first design, and better rates.

But those neobanks were still operating within the old banking rails. Aave isn’t.

Being crypto-native gives Aave an advantage (higher yields, 24/7 liquidity, global reach, and less overhead).

If they can really offer 9% APY with $1M in account protection, they will capture major attention. That is a major differentiator from off-the-shelf savings and MM accounts at most banks.

Stepping back, the concept of neobanks makes sense as a bridge between traditional finance and banking and crypto.

For those unfamiliar, a “neobank” is effectively an app where one can deposit and store dollars/stablecoins, interact with credit cards, send payments and in general function like a banking account.

They often come with more user-friendly apps, are more nimble than the trad banks and often offer better yield. But not the kind of yield Aave is offering.

Several new players are competing in this space, but none with the pedigree of Aave.

If Aave can deliver a smooth, compliant, trustworthy product, it becomes a real contender in the banking market.

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are very red as BTC briefly fell below $90k; BTC -4% at $91,300; ETH -5% at $3,050, BNB -2% at $915, SOL -3% at $137

• ICP (+9%), ASTER (+7%) and HYPE (+5%) led top movers

• Crypto Fear & Greed remained in Extreme Fear at 11, now in that range for 6 straight days

• Bitcoin wiped out its 2025 gains after falling below $92K (briefly sub-$90k), now down 2% on the YTD

• The Cboe unveiled “continuous” Bitcoin and Ethereum futures with 10-year terms as a perps-like alternative

• The White House is considering to allow the IRS to track and tax crypto holdings on foreign exchanges

• Vitalik Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation launched Kohaku as a new initiative to bake privacy and security into Ethereum wallets instead of treating them as add-ons

• Trump International Maldives announced tokenized real-estate stakes, letting investors buy blockchain-based shares in its 80-villa luxury resort

• Hive stock jumped after posting record Q2 revenue and landing new AI-infra deals, as investors rotated into miners despite broader crypto weakness.

• Japan is changing its crypto tax rules, dropping cap gains from 55% to 20%

Trump International Maldives Hotel Will Offer Tokenized Real Estate Investments

• Saylor’s Strategy bought another 8,178 Bitcoin for $835.6M last week at a 102k average

• Tom Lee’s BitMine bought over 54,000 ETH last week (~$173M)

• VanEck’s Solana ETF began trading yesterday; Fidelity Solana ETF to begin trading today

• KindlyMD extended its steep stock slide after delaying Q3 earnings due to accounting issues from its Nakamoto merger

• Grayscale prepared its Dogecoin ETF listing

• Memecoin leaders are mostly red down 3-6%; DOGE -3%, Shiba -3%, PEPE -4%, PENGU -6%, BONK -3%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -3%, and FARTCOIN +1%

• REKT fell 50% after leveraged whales were liquidated on IMF

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

• Aave introduced its Aave App with up to 9% yield, $1M in insurance and many other features as it enters the neobank space

• Coinbase updated its X bio to say “December 17,” teasing an event or product launch

• Coinbase Ventures invested in Permian Labs, the founder of USD AI

• DappRadar is shutting down after years as a leading dapp-tracking app, with the team calling current market conditions “financially unsustainable” for the analytics platform

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were mostly red and continuing their decline; Punks -5% at 29.9 ETH, Pudgy -4% at 5.15, BAYC -4% at 6.04 ETH; Hypurr’s +7% at 759 HYPE

• Good Vibes Club +20% to 0.48 ETH led top movers

• ACK’s “Showtime” sold for $75,000

• Pudgy Penguins announced that their book “The Worst Birthday Gift Ever” is available for purchase on Amazon