Aave's LEND Token Is Now Up 1,600% in 2020

There seems to be no stopping the LEND freight train: The native token of the decentralized lender Aave has risen by over 100% this month alone and is reporting stellar gains for the year so far.

• At press time, LEND was up over 1,600% since Jan. 1, with the major part of the rally occurring over the past seven weeks.
• The rapid gains look to have been driven by short-term traders and the rally may be over-extended, according to analysts at IntoTheBlock, a blockchain intelligence company.
• However the token's value is also reflecting impressive growth in actual users of the lending protocol and optimism surrounding its recently launched Credit Delegation product.
• Price rallies driven by fundamentals usually attract stronger buying pressure from investors.
• Interestingly, the number of long-term LEND holders, as represented by addresses with coins static for more than a year, has declined 4% on a year-to-date basis to 151,730, also according to IntoTheBlock.
• That may indicate early users leaving the platform, but could also further indicate activity on Aave, with holders lending out their tokens.

• Meanwhile, new users, or the number of addresses holding LEND for less than a month, has grown by almost 50% in just the last 30 days.
• At press time, there are 4,630 LEND addresses compared to 1,100 addresses at the end of May.
• Some argue that speculative frenzy is driving prices higher, drawing in traders, and the token looks vulnerable to a sudden bout of profit-taking.
• “The current rally may be overextended as retail users enter the frenzy and large players appear to be selling,” analysts at IntoTheBlock told The Defiant.
• The cryptocurrency was last seen trading at $0.287, representing a 14.7% gain on a 24-hour basis, according to data source Messari.
• Prices hit a new 2020 high of $0.31 during the European trading hours on Friday.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing.