Aero, the decentralized exchange formed by combining Aerodrome and Velodrome, went live on Wednesday across seven networks, developer Dromos Labs said in a press release. All of the revenue the exchange earns at launch is paid to holders of staked AERO, known as sAERO.
The launch carries the model the two exchanges ran on Base and OP Mainnet over to Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum, Robinhood Chain, Ink and Arc. Aero said the seven networks together saw about $120 billion in DEX volume in the 30 days to Oct. 14, close to four times the figure for Base and OP Mainnet on their own.
“Every market is coming onchain, and any institution that can be distilled into code will be. Their margin is our opportunity,” said Alex Cutler, CEO and founder of Dromos Labs. He added that “100% of the revenue it earns goes back to the people who stake AERO.”
Get Unchained’s crypto news in your inbox with the free Unchained Daily newsletter.
Stakers Pick the Markets
At the center of the design is Predictive Allocation, which the release said borrows from prediction markets. Stakers direct Aero’s liquidity-rewards budget toward the markets they think will produce revenue, then receive a proportional cut of what those markets earn, paid out in real time. Those who back a market early and correctly stand to gain the most, according to the company.
Liquidity providers can take trading fees directly or opt for a stream of AERO instead. AERO rewards are set in dollar terms and can rise with a pool’s activity, and token issuers or other protocols can pay to deepen markets they want to support. Aero also shipped Metaswaps for cross-chain swaps in a single transaction, an upgraded concentrated-liquidity engine called Slipstream V3 with dynamic fees, and an optional Autopilot tool that automates sAERO allocations.
The Track Record Aero Cites
Aero pointed to its predecessors’ numbers. It said Aerodrome handled 58% of DEX trading on Base in the third quarter and Velodrome 60% on OP Mainnet, and that Aerodrome’s share of tokenized-stock trading on Ethereum and its layer-2 networks climbed from roughly 2% at the start of September to 57% by Oct. 10.
Aero said the two exchanges have together returned $578 million in revenue to tokenholders. Aero’s public metrics page showed about $580 million in lifetime exchange revenue as of Monday.
Upgrade Terms
Aero launched without venture funding or a token sale. Holders swap AERO and VELO into the new AERO, while vote-escrowed veAERO and veVELO positions become sAERO. Under the upgrade terms, one VELO becomes 0.044 AERO and nothing converts automatically. Aerodrome holders receive 94.5% of the new supply and Velodrome holders 5.5%. The release said that split reflects each exchange’s share of combined revenue over the 52 weeks before the merger was announced in November 2025.
ChainSecurity, Blackthorn, Riley Holterhus and GregoAI audited the contracts ahead of a three-week public contest on Sherlock, and a Sherlock bug bounty opened at launch, Aero said.
Related Listen: ‘This Is a Better Version of a Stock, Period,’ Says Cutler
