Grayscale values Aave at $175 in one-year base case

Grayscale Research applied traditional finance valuation methods to Aave and projects the protocol’s native token could reach $175 in a one-year base case, while placing its current fair value between $80 and $100.

The report projects Aave could generate about $60 million in net income in 2026. Analysts used discounted cash flows, earnings multiples and comparisons with banks and fintech firms to convert projected protocol cash flows into a token value.

Grayscale cited revenue growth of more than sixfold from 2023 to 2025 and estimated the protocol operates at roughly a 50% margin. The firm identified growing lending activity, the GHO stablecoin and expanding institutional products as potential drivers of future revenue and earnings growth.

The report noted that protocol revenue does not automatically become token value. Fees collected by a protocol can be paid to liquidity providers, used for operating expenses, or retained and redistributed by a decentralized autonomous organization, and token holders generally do not hold the same legally enforceable claims as corporate shareholders.

Other institutional firms have used similar frameworks. One asset manager produced long-range models for Hyperliquid’s HYPE and Ether, placing HYPE and ETH at specific long-term price points while attributing most of ETH’s projected value to its collateral and monetary functions. That work highlighted a model where a large share of fees is used for token buybacks as a clearer path for direct token-level value accrual.

A banking forecast included in the broader market context projects tokenized assets could raise total DeFi assets to $2.7 trillion by 2030 and identified decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap as likely venues for tokenized markets.

Aave traded around $75 on Thursday, near Grayscale’s lower fair-value estimate. The report applies equity-style valuation techniques to a decentralized protocol and points out differences between protocol cash flows and corporate cash flows, including fee allocation and governance structures.