Origins of Aero
Aero (AERO) is a decentralized trading protocol that aims to unify liquidity across the Ethereum ecosystem. It was built by Dromos Labs, the team behind Aerodrome on Base and Velodrome on Optimism, and the two exchanges merged into Aero on October 22, 2026.
Velodrome launched on Optimism in 2022 and Aerodrome on Base in 2023, each becoming a leading exchange on its network. Building on that experience, Aero presents itself as a shared venue where users, agents, and protocols can trade, earn, and launch digital assets.
How Aero Works
Aero is designed to operate as a single exchange across several networks, including Base, Ethereum mainnet, Optimism, Arbitrum, Ink, Arc, and Robinhood Chain. It uses Slipstream concentrated liquidity pools and dynamic fees with the goal of improving execution efficiency.
With the merger, the former weekly voting cycle was replaced by a continuous allocation system. Holders of sAERO direct rewards toward liquidity pools and receive a proportional share of protocol revenue, with a cooldown of about 47 hours between allocation changes.
Tokenomics and Ecosystem
During the merger, existing AERO converted 1:1 and VELO converted at roughly 0.044 AERO per token, giving Aerodrome holders about 94.5% and Velodrome holders about 5.5% of the upgraded supply. Locked veAERO and veVELO positions convert into sAERO with their remaining lock time carried over.
According to published materials, the upgraded supply goes only to existing holders, with no venture allocation or token sale. Legacy emissions ended at launch, so holders must manually upgrade their tokens to access the new reward system.
Strengths and Risks
Commonly cited strengths include its design for aggregating liquidity across networks, the track record of running two established exchanges, and a revenue-sharing governance model. It also combines trading, liquidity provision, and asset launches on a single platform.
On the other hand, as a newly merged system it carries smart contract risk, cross-chain operational complexity, and possible confusion during token migration. Competition from other decentralized exchanges and evolving regulation are also factors, and this overview is informational only, not investment advice.
