Aerodrome Finance (AERO)

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Historical price evolution of Aerodrome Finance

Daily historical data. Updated automatically.

Aerodrome Finance has its roots in the prior work of its founding team with Velodrome Finance, the leading decentralised exchange on the Optimism network. In 2022, the team led by Alexander Cutler and Tao Watts redesigned the Solidly protocol created by Andre Cronje, co-founder of Sonic/Fantom, correcting the deficiencies identified in the original design. This work resulted in Velodrome V2, which introduced innovations such as concentrated liquidity and the ve(3,3) governance model.

On 28th August 2023, coinciding exactly with the opening of Base's public mainnet, the same team launched Aerodrome Finance, becoming one of the first major DeFi projects on this new network. The launch was characterised by an initial supply of 500 million AERO tokens, of which 90% (450 million) were locked as veAERO. 40% of the total supply was distributed via airdrop to veVELO holders from Velodrome. Notably, Coinbase Ventures participated as an investor and acquired veAERO to participate in the protocol's governance, whilst the project avoided both presales and traditional venture capital funding.

During 2024, Aerodrome implemented Slipstream, a concentrated liquidity model based on Uniswap V3, which contributed to its consolidation as the number 1 DEX on Base by both trading volume and total value locked (TVL). Institutional adoption materialised when Coinbase One integrated AERO as a rewards token for its members. In December 2024, AERO reached its all-time high whilst the protocol exceeded $1,240 million in TVL, representing approximately 50% of the total value locked across the entire Base network.

In November 2025, Dromos Labs, the company behind both Aerodrome and Velodrome, announced the merger of both protocols into a single DEX called Aero, with expansion plans to Ethereum mainnet and Circle Arc. According to this plan, the existing Aerodrome and Velodrome protocols will continue functioning but will cease receiving support following the launch of Aero, scheduled for the second quarter of 2026. For 2026, Aerodrome maintains its position as the largest DeFi protocol on Base, with approximately $476 million in TVL and generating over $1 million in weekly fees.

Aerodrome Finance operates as a decentralised exchange (DEX) and liquidity hub built exclusively on Base, Ethereum's layer 2 developed by Coinbase. The protocol implements the ve(3,3) AMM model, an evolution of the system created by Andre Cronje, where AERO token holders can lock them to obtain veAERO, which are NFTs with voting power. These NFTs allow their holders to decide which liquidity pools receive AERO emissions and, in return, obtain 100% of the trading fees generated by the protocol.

The mechanism creates an interconnected incentive system: liquidity providers receive AERO emissions proportional to the votes their pool obtains from veAERO holders, whilst the latter are rewarded with trading fees. This structure generates a multiplier effect where more liquidity reduces price slippage, which attracts greater trading volume, generates more fees and creates greater incentives to participate in the voting system. Aerodrome combines two types of pools: classic ones for stablecoins and Slipstream concentrated liquidity pools for volatile pairs, based on Uniswap V3 technology.

Aerodrome's position is reinforced by the specific context of Base, which lacks its own native token. This circumstance makes AERO the de facto incentive token of the Base ecosystem, a function that has the active backing of Coinbase Ventures, which establishes a direct connection between the protocol and the network's underlying infrastructure.

Data verified against external sources. Some values may have changed since the last update.