Aerodrome Finance (AERO)

What Aerodrome Finance is

Aerodrome is a decentralized exchange on Base, and AERO is the token it emits to liquidity providers and locks for governance. Its repository describes the protocol as "an AMM on EVMs inspired by Solidly," with its contracts deployed on Base (source: Aerodrome contracts repository, read September 2026).

The Solidly lineage is the important part. In this family of designs, an automated market maker does not pay liquidity providers a fixed share of emissions. Instead, holders lock the protocol token, vote each week on which pools receive new emissions, and collect the trading fees from the pools they voted for. Emissions become a market that voters allocate, rather than a schedule the protocol sets.

For where to buy Aerodrome Finance from your country or state, see the availability tables on this site and the venues listed at Exchanges.

How it works

Everything runs on a weekly clock. Aerodrome's specification states that "an epoch is one week in length, beginning at Thursday midnight UTC time," and every part of the system, emissions, votes, fees and bribes, settles against that boundary.

Locking AERO produces veAERO, which the specification describes as an ERC-721 ve-NFT representing the lock. Representing a lock as an nft rather than a balance is what allows locks to be merged and split, and it means a veAERO position is transferable as a whole while the AERO inside it is not. The maximum lock is four years: "tokens can be locked for a maximum of four years."

veAERO holders vote on gauges, and gauges are what connect votes to emissions. Voters direct protocol emissions to pools, and each gauge then distributes rewards to that pool's depositors in proportion to the votes it received. The incentive for the voter is on the other side of the ledger: pool trading fees are held separately in a PoolFees contract and paid out to the voters of that pool, not to the liquidity providers.

That fee arrangement is stated precisely and is worth reading closely, because it inverts the usual expectation. The specification says "the fee voting reward derives from the fees relinquished by LP depositors depositing their LP token in to the gauge." A depositor who stakes their lp token into a gauge gives up the trading fees in exchange for AERO emissions; the fees go to whoever voted for that pool. Fees and bribes accrue on the same schedule, and the timing lags by an epoch: "fees that accrue during epoch n will be distributed to voters of that pool in epoch n+1."

Rebases are the third flow. The specification states that rebases are sent to a RewardsDistributor and "are added on top of the base emissions," calculated from the locked and unlocked AERO one second before the epoch flips, with each ve-NFT earning in proportion to its contribution to total locked AERO. The function of a rebase in this design is dilution protection: lockers receive a share of new supply so that emissions to liquidity providers do not steadily reduce their proportion of the total.

Supply and tokenomics

Emissions start high and taper by a fixed percentage every week rather than on a multi-year halving. The specification gives both numbers: "emissions start at 15m per epoch, decaying at a rate of 1% per epoch." One percent a week compounds, so the weekly emission after a year is a substantially smaller number than at the start, and the schedule never reaches zero.

Three flows meet in a veAERO position, and confusing them is the most common error. Voting earns the trading fees and bribes of the pools voted for. Locking earns the rebase. Providing liquidity and staking the LP token into a gauge earns AERO emissions but surrenders the trading fees. A holder needs to know which of the three they are doing.

History

Aerodrome is a direct descendant of the vote-escrow model that Curve introduced and Solidly generalized. The Curve version tied governance weight to lock duration; Solidly added the idea that voters, rather than liquidity providers, receive a pool's trading fees, which makes a vote worth something concrete every week rather than only in aggregate governance terms.

Representing the lock as an ERC-721 rather than a balance was the change that made those positions liquid without unlocking them. A ve-NFT can be sold, merged or split as an object, so a locker is not choosing between a four-year commitment and no exit at all.

The 1% weekly decay is a deliberately different emission shape from a step-down schedule. Rather than a cliff every year or every four, supply growth shrinks continuously, which keeps incentives predictable week to week for the pools competing for votes.

Risks and what to watch

Emission dilution is the structural pressure on AERO. Fifteen million tokens per epoch at the start, decaying one percent a week, is a large continuing issuance, and the rebase protects lockers' proportional share rather than the token's supply.

Vote-buying is a feature of this design rather than a defect, and it concentrates influence. Protocols pay bribes to direct emissions to their own pools, so the entities that accumulate and lock the most AERO hold durable control over where new supply goes.

Locking is irreversible for the chosen term, up to four years, and the ve-NFT's market price is the only exit before expiry.

Providing liquidity carries impermanent loss, and on a fee-relinquishing gauge the AERO emissions are the only compensation for it.

Single-chain deployment concentrates risk. The contracts live on Base, so Base's own availability and its bridge arrangements are part of the risk a holder takes.

Frequently asked questions

How fast do AERO emissions fall?

Emissions start at 15 million AERO per weekly epoch and decay by 1% each epoch. Because the decay compounds weekly rather than stepping down annually, the rate declines continuously and never reaches zero.

What is veAERO?

AERO locked in the protocol, represented as an ERC-721 ve-NFT rather than a balance. The maximum lock is four years, and because the position is an NFT it can be merged, split or transferred as a whole.

Who receives a pool's trading fees?

The veAERO holders who voted for that pool, not the liquidity providers who staked their LP tokens into its gauge. Those depositors receive AERO emissions instead. Fees accrued in one epoch are distributed to voters in the next.

What is the rebase for?

Dilution protection for lockers. Rebases are added on top of base emissions and paid to ve-NFT holders in proportion to their share of total locked AERO, calculated one second before the weekly epoch flip.

Where can you buy Aerodrome Finance?

Availability depends on your country or US state. See where to buy Aerodrome Finance for the exchanges serving your jurisdiction, and Exchanges to compare fees, kyc requirements and payment methods.