Velvet (VELVET) has become one of the top-performing tokens in the market over the past week, posting a 249% gain that ranks among the largest of any top 70 asset at the time of this report. The move tracks a protocol-level development that lifted overall output, as Velvet consolidated its Base liquidity onto Aerodrome and opened synthetic pre-IPO markets for SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
VELVET ran from a low of $0.09 to as high as $2.09 on CoinMarketCap’s chart at the peak of the rally as trader buying intensified. Futures activity drove much of that move, with leveraged capital inflows reaching $1.29 billion against just $33.94 million in spot inflows over the same period, according to CoinGlass.
Aerodrome Move Tightens Base Execution
Velvet now routes Base trades through Aerodrome, the chain’s deepest liquidity venue, after consolidating its protocol-owned liquidity onto the exchange. The platform’s Meta Aggregator scans across liquidity sources to find the best route, and on Base that now means tapping Aerodrome’s deep liquidity for tighter pricing, lower slippage, and better fills.
The upgrade also added direct entry into Aerodrome liquidity provider positions from inside the app. Users open the Yield tab, browse Aerodrome pools by total value locked (TVL) and annual percentage yield (APY), and deposit in one click, with Velvet bundling the approval, swap, and position entry into a single flow rather than several transactions across multiple interfaces. Velvet operates as an AI-powered trading layer running on Base, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, and Sonic, where users name the token they want to sell and the token they want to buy and the system handles routing.
Source: DeFiLlamaSo far, the price action tracked a sharp rise in on-chain staking, with the value of staked VELVET climbing from $1.82 million to $7.53 million at the time of reporting. Total value locked, by contrast, barely moved over the same stretch, edging from roughly $752,000 to $769,000. Staking growth signals holders locking up tokens, but flat TVL suggests fresh capital has not yet followed, and a durable uptrend would likely need sustained inflows that lift TVL as investors deposit assets for the longer term. For context, Velvet’s TVL sat near $7.53 million as of September 2025, well above where it stands today.
Pre-IPO Markets Pull in Speculative Demand
Velvet opened access to SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic on June 10 through its integrations with TradeXYZ and Ventuals, letting traders take leveraged positions on the three private companies before any public listing. The launch landed two days before SpaceX’s expected June 12 debut, which is the largest IPO in history at a valuation approaching $1.75 trillion.
SpaceX exposure drew the heaviest interest and drove much of the mid-June surge, with synthetic SPCX perpetual volume across venues exceeding $500 million before the Nasdaq listing. Its tokenized stock cleared more than $100 million in first-day volume on Gate, dwarfing other tokenized equities across board.