Drift ProtocolDRIFT

The dynamic between Ethena, Pendle and Aave exhibits a mutually-beneficial relationship, where the offerings of each business grows the top lines of every party in this exchange. Pendle sits at the intersection of YBA issuers (Ethena) and money markets (Aave), demonstrating heightened utilization rates of YBAs, where the PTs then exhibit profound utilization as collateral. YBA issuers see Pendle as a premier go-to-market venue, often underwriting incentives for liquidity on the market and solving for Pendle’s supply side, while money markets view PTs as attractive collateral types to lend against, solving for Pendle’s demand side. PTs represent a highly profitable collateral listing for Aave, with depositors maxing out the available borrow capacity. Pendle’s recent launch of Boros may now present the most material growth vector beyond what is currently exhibited on V2 markets, offering the ability to price yield, spreads, and duration risk across various points in time out into the future.

Felix and HyperLend have emerged as HyperEVM’s dominant lending venues, growing TVL from under $30M and $10M, respectively, to over $400M. Built on Morpho and Aave architectures, they combine secure vanilla markets with higher-yield active strategies, many boosted by ecosystem points and Kinetiq’s KHYPE collateral. Even in conservative scenarios, base lending yields outperform DeFi benchmarks, while advanced loops and CDP strategies offer triple-digit APYs, positioning both protocols to capture significant upside as Hyperliquid matures.