Key Notes
- Aerodrome and Velodrome have combined as Aero across seven networks.
- Legacy AERO and VELO upgrade to a new AERO token, while locked positions become sAERO.
- Stakers direct liquidity incentives and receive exchange revenue under the project’s economic model.
Aerodrome and Velodrome have combined into Aero, a decentralized spot exchange developed by Dromos Labs that brings their liquidity and token systems together across seven blockchain networks.
The launch covers Ethereum mainnet, Base, Robinhood Chain, Ink, OP Mainnet, Arc and Arbitrum. The project’s announcement set the rollout for 00:00 UTC on October 22, equivalent to 8 p.m. EDT on October 21.
The Block reported the merger, citing a project statement that put Aerodrome’s share of Base DEX volume at 58% in the third quarter and Velodrome’s share on OP Mainnet at 60%. Those are project-reported market shares, not figures independently verified by CoinScreamer.
One Exchange and a New AERO Token
The consolidation replaces two separate token economies with a new AERO token. Existing AERO and VELO are eligible for conversion, while locked veAERO and veVELO positions upgrade to sAERO, the new staked position used to coordinate liquidity rewards.
Aero’s upgrade hub quotes one new AERO for each legacy AERO and approximately 0.044 AERO for each VELO. The VELO calculation reflects projected token supplies and the allocation of 94.5% of the new supply to the Aerodrome community and 5.5% to Velodrome holders.
For self-custodied tokens, the project says conversion requires an upgrade through the legacy platforms’ portals; balances do not simply change automatically. Centralized exchanges manage their own processes and timetables. The hub lists no fixed upgrade deadline, while noting that legacy front ends could eventually close.
Stakers Direct Rewards Toward Productive Markets
The new allocation system, called Predictive Allocation, lets sAERO holders choose which pools receive AERO incentives. In return, they receive a proportional share of the revenue generated by the markets to which they allocate.
In the launch statement cited by The Block, Dromos Labs founder and CEO Alex Cutler said all Aero revenue goes back to AERO stakers. The project’s economic model makes an important distinction: exchange revenue is the amount retained by the protocol, rather than every dollar of trading fees paid by users.
Liquidity providers can choose to earn AERO rewards or retain fees under the applicable pool rules. Fees from positions earning AERO become exchange revenue for the token operators allocating rewards to those pools. Fee-earning positions instead retain their fees after any applicable protocol charge.
The project describes pool revenue as flowing to participating sAERO holders, while service revenue can return value through mechanisms such as buybacks and burns. The 100% claim therefore describes the model’s distribution of exchange value, not a fixed yield or an equal cash payment to every AERO holder.
Cross-Chain Swaps and Fees That Adjust to Volatility
Metaswaps connects bridging, routing and swaps using Aero’s onchain liquidity. The objective is to let a pool on one network serve traders arriving from elsewhere, reducing the need to maintain separate liquidity for every route.
Slipstream V3 updates the concentrated-liquidity exchange engine with dynamic fees that increase during rapid market moves. The project also describes MEV capture on supported layer-2 networks, intended to retain value that would otherwise go to transaction-ordering strategies.
The launch adds another approach to compensating liquidity providers as exchanges revise their economics. CoinScreamer previously covered PancakeSwap’s proposal to raise providers’ fee share while reducing CAKE emissions. That remains a separate governance proposal, whereas Aero is introducing a combined platform and token upgrade.
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