Original author: Sanqing, Foresight News
On October 22 at 8:00, emissions from Aerodrome and Velodrome will cease simultaneously, and the unified Aero token will launch in sync across seven chains: Base, Ethereum Mainnet, OP Mainnet, Arc, Ink, Arbitrum, and Robinhood Chain.
The exchange rate is 1:1 for old AERO to new AERO, and 1 VELO exchanges for 0.044 new AERO. New token holders will consist of approximately 94.5% Aerodrome holders and 5.5% Velodrome holders. Self-custodied tokens must be manually upgraded via the official upgrade portal, and this process is irreversible; tokens held on exchanges will be converted automatically by the platform.
The merger plan was announced at the New Horizon launch event in November 2025, originally scheduled to go live on the Ethereum mainnet and Arc in the second quarter of 2026. The target was later adjusted to September, then moved to October due to an extended audit period. Over the course of the year, the plan itself underwent several changes.
Weekly voting has been replaced by "Prediction"
Under the old mechanism of Aerodrome and Velodrome, ve holders voted once per week, determining where token emissions would be allocated for the following week based on each pool’s fee performance from the previous week.
At last year’s launch event, the development team Dromos stated they would retain the ve(3,3) model. This rollout replaces it with a “staking” system: veAERO and veVELO are converted to sAERO, with remaining durations preserved and rounded up to the nearest full week; permanent locks are converted to the maximum staking period, and staking cannot be unwound until expiration. Unlike before, sAERO no longer rebases and is transferable.
The weekly voting mechanism will be replaced by the newly launched Predictive Allocation, with rewards continuously flowing to all pools. sAERO holders no longer need to wait for weekly集中 voting; they can adjust their allocations multiple times within a week (initially, a 47-hour interval is required between each adjustment for a position) and immediately earn income from their selected pools.
Token issuers can pay distributors through Liquidity Payments and Launch Payments. Since sAERO is deployed on Base, holders only need to initiate one transaction on Base to distribute rewards to any pool on any of the seven chains, without needing to perform separate operations on each chain.
Aero tweeted that the allocators are not betting on whether the token will rise or fall, but on whether a particular market will generate trades. The incentive logic has thus shifted from rewarding based on last week’s performance to placing bets in advance.
Emissions begin to follow income.
The economic model article published by Aero on October 19 shows that, over the four weeks in September 2026, $14.9 million in revenue flowed to veAERO holders, comprising $6.1 million in trading fees and $8.9 million from Liquidity and Launch Payments. During the same period, AERO valued at $10.5 million was paid to LPs according to the fixed emission schedule.
However, the issue is that past token emissions were released according to a fixed schedule, with no direct link to protocol revenue.
Last year’s launch only mentioned that emissions would be adjusted based on protocol revenue; this time, specific parameters have been provided. Gauge Caps link each pool’s reward cap to its projected revenue, with the long-term goal of achieving an average exchange-wide reward of approximately 1.2 times the projected revenue—any AERO exceeding this cap will not be minted.
Meanwhile, rewards are only minted when claimed; LPs that withdraw before completing the minimum staking period will forfeit their rewards, and these will also not be minted.
According to Aero's estimates, the current annual issuance rate of AERO is approximately 11% of the supply, or about 8% when capped at 1.2 times the current revenue. The annualized inflation cap is 20%. Additionally, the Momentum Fund, formed from the integrated original buyback program, has collectively repurchased or locked approximately 110 million AERO tokens.
While making the supply dependent on revenue, adjustments have also been made to the revenue side. Slipstream’s concentrated liquidity pools have introduced dynamic fees, increasing fees during periods of market volatility and lowering them during calm periods.
Aero backtested nine sets of data across three pools during calm and volatile periods in August to September 2026. Under the condition of identical average fees, dynamic fees generated higher revenue than fixed fees. Additionally, an MEV tax will be gradually introduced, requiring additional fees on transactions whose priority fees exceed the standard retail transaction threshold; this revenue will be distributed to LPs or sAERO holders in the form of trading fees.
Revenue is concentrated on Base—how can Aero break through?
According to the Aero Dune data page, as of mid-October 2026, the combined revenue of the two protocols is approximately $580 million, with Aerodrome, deployed solely on Base, generating about $510 million, and Velodrome, deployed across multiple chains including OP Mainnet, generating a total of approximately $69.8 million—of which $64.8 million comes from OP Mainnet alone.
However, new trading sources have emerged on Base. Coinbase’s tokenized stocks went live on Aerodrome on August 24, and Aero disclosed that its share of EVM tokenized stock trading volume increased from 2% on September 6 to 34% on October 4.
Although revenue is almost entirely concentrated on a single chain, Aero is attempting to expand its market share through seven different chains. Aero states that the two original protocols currently operate on chains accounting for approximately 17% of EVM spot trading volume; after all seven chains are live, this share is expected to triple.
To attract liquidity on new chains, Aero has set the platform fee for unpledged LPs to 0% on Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum, and Robinhood Chain, while maintaining a 5% fee on the other four chains. The cross-chain swap feature, Metaswaps, has also been launched simultaneously, allowing users to perform swaps between supported chains within a single application.
Beyond expanding to new chains, previously supported chains have not been fully discontinued. Pools on Celo, Fraxtal, Soneium, and Unichain remain tradable, but no longer receive AERO incentives. Deposits on Lisk must be withdrawn by October 31.
As arranged by Aero, the first allocation of Predictive Allocation will begin on October 23 at 0:00, and sAERO staked prior to this date will start earning rewards from this round.