Bella Protocol (BEL) is trading near $0.31 after recovering 32% last week from the market crash triggered by Donald Trump's renewed tariff threats against China. Its competitor Aave (AAVE) fell 13% over the identical period. So, does BEL have the potential to proceed to grow and reach $1 by the tip of the 12 months? Let's analyze.
BEL/USD price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
The DeFi sector sees 41% growth within the third quarter, but Bella's TVL stays low
The total locked value (TVL) of all DeFi platforms increased by 41% within the third quarter of 2025, reaching a three-year high. This upswing signals a slow but regular return of liquidity to decentralized lending, staking and yield protocols after greater than a 12 months of stagnation.
However, Bella Protocol’s TVL stays low – at $210,396, based on DeFiLlama. This figure is a pointy decline from the 2021 peak of $40 million and shows that the project has yet to get better significant user deposits despite a broader recovery within the sector.
BEL total value locked. Source: Defillama
At the time of writing, BEL is trading slightly below its 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) at $0.33, which continues to act as a key resistance level.
Shorter EMAs – 20, 50 and 100 days – are between $0.25 and $0.27, forming a powerful base of support.
BEL/USD 1-day price chart with RSI and EMAs. Source: TradingView
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is around 62, indicating moderate bullish momentum. If BEL price closes well above $0.33, the following upside targets are $0.50 and $0.70. Failure to carry $0.28 could trigger a correction back towards $0.25.
In the past, the BEL token has traded above $1 several times, peaking at nearly $9.75 in 2020 through the early DeFi boom. Since then, each trading volume and network participation have declined sharply.
Bella expands AI and cross-chain partnerships in fall 2025
Bella Protocol has expanded its focus beyond yield optimization to integrating artificial intelligence and cross-chain infrastructure. In its Fall 2025 Progress Report, the project announced several energetic initiatives designed to enhance product scalability and developer collaboration.
The updates included improvements to Signal Bot and Research Bot, two AI modules that analyze market data and on-chain activity.
Bella has also launched a Uniswap V3 simulator, a quantitative research tool for testing liquidity strategies.
The development roadmap highlights ongoing integrations with zkLink, Fraction AI and GAIB, geared toward expanding cross-chain compatibility and providing a foundation for more autonomous DeFi agents.
In September 2025, Bella co-founded a University Crypto Research Alliance with ARPA Network, connecting blockchain teams with academic institutions to advertise applied research in AI and DeFi.
Additionally, Bella entered right into a technical partnership with Solidus AI Tech to enhance the computational efficiency of its AI products through using powerful cloud infrastructure. This collaboration is predicted to speed up Bella's AI model training and improve its predictive analytics level across all supported protocols.
Can BEL reach $1 by 2025?
For BEL to succeed in $1, its market cap would should increase from $24 million to around $80 million, a tripling.
This scenario is dependent upon several measurable aspects:
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TVL must get better over $10 million through renewed deposits or partnerships.
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Daily trading volume should remain above $100 million.
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The 2025 DeFi cycle needs to take care of its momentum within the third quarter and attract recent liquidity to smaller protocols.
A move towards $0.70 is feasible if market conditions remain favorable, but $1 stays an aggressive goal that will require a mixture of industry-wide expansion and visual user growth inside the Bella ecosystem.
