Aerodrome

Aerodrome is the liquidity engine of Base, Coinbase's L2. Launched in August 2023 by the team behind Velodrome, it applies the ve(3,3) model — a fusion of Curve's vote-escrowed tokens and Olympus-style (3,3) game theory — to direct AERO emissions toward the pools that voters deem most valuable. Protocols bribe voters to attract emissions, LPs earn those emissions, and traders get deep liquidity: a self-reinforcing flywheel.

On the trading side, Aerodrome offers both stable pools for like-priced assets and volatile pools for everything else, plus Slipstream concentrated-liquidity pools for maximum capital efficiency. It quickly became the default listing venue for Base-native tokens and the deepest source of liquidity for majors on the chain, routinely leading all Base DEXs in volume and fees.

AERO lockers (veAERO) receive 100% of trading fees and bribes for the pools they vote on, aligning long-term holders with protocol revenue. For anyone trading or building on Base, Aerodrome is essential infrastructure — the main risks are the reflexivity of emissions-driven liquidity and vote-escrow complexity for passive users.