Circulation is linked to the total value locked on Aave, as tokens are burned whenever the protocol gathers fees.

An initial coin offering was held in November 2017, where $16.2 million was raised by selling one billion AAVE tokens at a rate equivalent to $0.0162 a piece. At the time, 23% of AAVE tokens were assigned to its founders and project.

AAVE tokens have been built based on the ERC-20 standard, and they are designed to be deflationary. In the event of a shortfall in the DeFi protocol, staked tokens would be used as collateral as a last resort.

In July 2020, Aave unveiled plans to hold a token swap. This means that the 1.3 billion AAVE tokens in circulation would be swapped for the newly minted AAVE cryptocurrency at a ratio of 1:100, creating a total supply of 16 million AAVE. (Three million of this would be held in reserve.)