DeFi and Solana powered Friday's rally; AAVE surged 19% on investment talk

DeFi names and Solana led Friday's gains, with AAVE jumping 19% after CoinDesk reported that the parent company of Kraken is exploring a strategic investment. Aave founder Stani Kulechov also pointed to "Aavenomics 3.0," a planned tokenomics revamp that would introduce an automated buyback mechanism. AAVE was trading around $95.79, maintaining its position as the largest DeFi lending protocol. Solana rose about 10% as tokenized stock trading volume reached $2.5B this week, up 10x from a month ago and accounting for more than 80% of all onchain equity trading. Jito climbed 30%.