Aerodrome attracts $150 million in locked value a day after launch

According to CoinDesk, Aerodrome, a platform developed by Velodrome in collaboration with Base developers, has attracted $150 million in locked value just a day after going live, increasing Base blockchain's DeFi ecosystem by 80%. The platform aims to serve as a business development protocol for the Base ecosystem, supporting projects during their launch, onboarding new projects and tokens, and generating liquidity for the ecosystem. Aerodrome's creators hope to replicate the success of Velodrome, one of Optimism network's most used platforms, which holds over $288 million in locked value.

Like Velodrome, Aerodrome rewards its AERO tokens to users who provide liquidity, conduct swaps, or participate in governance. AERO tokens have a total supply of 500 million, with 450 million locked for four years. The only liquid AERO at launch are the 50 million tokens reserved for voter incentives and providing initial liquidity.

Aerodrome addresses a key issue faced by decentralized exchanges, where rewards emissions are tied to total liquidity rather than trading volume, which generates fees for the protocol. The platform allows AERO holders to lock their holdings for periods ranging from one week to four years, in exchange for veAERO, a vested AERO token. The longer the lock, the more veAERO the user receives, granting them more voting power on governance matters, similar to the mechanism used on Velodrome.

The locked veAERO tokens are represented as NFTs, which can be traded on different NFT marketplaces. Other users can purchase these NFTs to gain exposure to the ecosystem without having to buy tokens and manage their positions. Users can use veAERO tokens to participate in platform governance and help set the reward levels of trading pools offered on the platform. In return, these voters receive 100% of all fees and bribes received by the specific pools they voted for.

This approach appears to be effective, as Velodrome generated platform revenues of over $3 million in the past month, with $1.3 million paid out as fees to VELO holders and users.