$AAVE Regarding the attack on AAVE, from a logical deduction, its subsequent impact is likely to go far beyond just fixing a single technical vulnerability. Once a DeFi protocol suffers a serious security incident, the collapse of user trust is often irreversible — this is not an emotional judgment but is determined by the fragility of on-chain funds and risk-avoidance psychology. Even if the project team and the Ethereum Foundation implement remedial measures later, it will be difficult to rebuild that “risk-free” consensus foundation. Historical experience shows that such incidents are very likely to trigger a run on the protocol: users would rather suffer losses than withdraw their funds, and liquidity exhaustion further weakens the protocol’s safety margin, creating a negative feedback loop.

Referring to the theft of CETUS on the SUI chain, that event almost became a watershed that shifted the SUI ecosystem from expansion to contraction. Over a year has passed since the incident, and the overall locked-up amount and activity level on SUI have not shown effective recovery, indicating that “a single theft causes long-term bleeding” is no exaggeration. By analogy, if AAVE indeed suffers an attack, its leading position will face a fundamental shake-up, and market share redistribution is only a matter of time.

Of course, when one whale falls, all things flourish. The potential decline of AAVE might instead open a window of opportunity for other lending protocols. Among them, SKY and MORPHO are worth paying attention to, especially the latter. The logic supporting MORPHO is based on: on one hand, the entry of traditional financial giants like BlackRock provides it with compliance and capital backing; on the other hand, its market share has been steadily increasing over the past few quarters, and its product mechanisms (such as optimizing interest rates through matching engines) are gradually being validated by the market in differentiated competition. Combining these structural factors, in the next bull market, MORPHO is expected to absorb the residual demand spilling over from AAVE and become a new leader in the lending sector.