An overview of the leading lending, staking and stablecoin issuance protocols

1. Aave

The largest and one of the first DeFi protocols on the decentralized finance market, the amount of blockchain assets (TVL) exceeded $18 billion as of April 2025. Moreover, this figure has almost doubled in the last year alone amid the overall growth of the crypto market.

The protocol was launched in 2017 and was originally called ETHLend. A year later, it was renamed Aave, marking a shift from P2P lending to a model using liquidity pools and smart contracts.

Aave is a lending platform that allows users to borrow against digital assets by adding them to dedicated liquidity pools.

The Aave protocol allows cryptocurrencies such as:

According to Aave's official DeFi app for April 2025, credit pools have yields ranging from 0.01% to 3.28% per annum.

The Aave protocol has its own native token, AAVE, released in October 2020. It is designed to be managed (DAO), protect liquidity, pay rewards to liquidity providers for credit pools, and stake in its own ecosystem. According to CoinMarketCap, the AAVE token is among the top 40 cryptocurrencies in market capitalization of $2.03 billion and is the leader among the protocols discussed in this paper.

2. Lido

Launched in December 202, Lido, also known as Lido DAO, was the first and, as of April 2025, the largest liquid-stacking protocol in the DeFi market. Based on data from the same period, Lido ranks 2nd among all DeFi protocols regarding TVL, which is nearly $15.2 billion.

Liquidity staking allows users to stack ETH cryptocurrency not directly in the Ethereum blockchain but through a special Lido smart contract, in return receiving so-called LP tokens that can be reused on the DeFi market:

Contribute to the liquidity pools of decentralized exchanges (DEXes) and credit protocols;
Convert to other tokens, including stablecoins;
Re-stake in re-staking protocols and earn additional income;
Simply keep them in the wallet, waiting for the price of the original cryptocurrency, to whose exchange rate they are linked, to rise.

Liquid-stacking lowers the entry threshold for users and has the added benefit of hedging investment risks. However, liquid steaking itself carries risks associated with the possibility of hacking and bugs in the smart contract of the steaking protocol.

As of April 2025, the Lido protocol allows ETH cryptocurrency to be deposited into liquid staking and earn a 3.1% annualized return. In return, Lido stakers receive equivalent LP tokens to generate additional income from restaking, lending, and yield farming.

In December 2020, the Lido team issued its own Lido DAO (LDO) management token, which is used to pay rewards and votes for proposals to grow the ecosystem. The LDO token is one of the top 100 crypto assets by market capitalization, which is $609.5 million.

3. EigenLayer

EigenLayer is a market-leading DeFi restacking protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. According to the April 2025 DeFi Llama data, EigenLayer's TVL is $7.3 billion, and the project ranks 3rd among all DeFi platforms in the decentralized finance market.

The EigenLayer protocol allows to re-stake tokens that are already in steaking. Thus, users who have deposited their original ETH into a liquid stack, e.g., via Lido or Rocket Pool, and received LST tokens can re-stake them and earn additional income.

Using the EigenLayer protocol, stETH LST tokens received during ETH liquid-stacking on a platform such as Lido can be restacked and earn about 4% annually.

The native token of the EigenLayer platform, EIGEN, was only issued in April 2024. As of April 2025, it has a market capitalization of $186.2 million. The EIGEN token is used to reward Ethereum validators and manage the EigenLayer ecosystem.

4. Sky

The Sky platform, formerly MakerDAO, is a platform for issuing a partially decentralized Dai (DAI) stablecoin secured by digital and real assets.

In August 2024, the MakerDAO team announced a rebranding and renamed their platform to Sky Protocol amid the launch of new DeFi-optimized services and a new USDS stablecoin. DeFi Llama says Sky Protocol's TVL is just over $6 billion.

Unlike the other protocols on the list, Sky is not used to generate revenue in the DeFi market but plays an essential role in developing the decentralized economy by providing a reliable alternative to centralized stablecoins.

DAI, issued on the Sky platform, remains one of the few decentralized stablecoins that have retained a peg to the US dollar exchange rate, which is not the case, for example, with Terra's UST and Waves' USDN.

There are also two native tokens in the Sky ecosystem: Maker (MKR) and SKY. The MKR token grants its holders the right to vote on proposals to improve the Sky platform and maintain the DAI's stability. As of April 2025, the MKR token is ranked 56th in the overall cryptocurrency ranking by market capitalization, which is $1.13 billion.

5. Ethena

Ethena is a new protocol for issuing stablecoins based on the Ethereum blockchain. According to DeFi Llama's April 2025 data, the TVL of the Ethena protocol is nearly $5 billion.

Like Sky Protocol, Ethena offers users its own decentralized USDe stablecoin, which, unlike USDT and USDC, does not rely on centralized reserves.

Unlike Sky, Ethena also supports staking for the USDe stablecoin with a 5% annualized yield. USDe is ranked 4th among all stablecoins in terms of market capitalization, behind only USDT, USDC and DAI.

In addition to the USDe stablecoin, the Ethena ecosystem includes another token, ENA. The ENA token was issued in April 2024 and is designed to manage the protocol and provide bonus rewards for active participants. As of April 2025, the ENA token is among the top 50 cryptocurrencies in market capitalization, which is $1.52 billion.