Aerodrome + Velodrome merge

The teams behind Aerodrome (the leading trading platform on Base) and Velodrome (the leading trading platform on Optimism) announced they are consolidating into a single platform named Aero at Dromos Labs’ “A New Horizon” event on November 12, 2025. (dromos.xyz) Their two native coins will be collapsed into one AERO coin, with about 94.5% of the new supply allocated to current Aerodrome coin holders and about 5.5% allocated to current Velodrome holders; that split reflects the protocols’ measured revenue over the preceding year (Aerodrome ≈ $260 million, Velodrome ≈ $15 million). (paragraph.com) (forklog.com) Aerodrome and Velodrome operate as automated trading programs that let people swap tokens using pooled deposits rather than a central order book; combining those pools concentrates liquidity, which the teams say should reduce the price impact of large trades and funnel more trading fees into the single platform. (thedefiant.io) (theblock.co) The rollout will keep Base as the primary hub while bringing the unified platform to additional networks, including Ethereum mainnet and Circle’s Arc, and the team has signaled a phased public launch in the second quarter of 2026. (thedefiant.io) (forklog.com) Governance and rewards will be merged: Velodrome’s vote‑lock system — where holders lock tokens for a set time to gain voting power and higher fee shares — will be combined with Aerodrome’s emissions engine, the mechanism that issues ongoing rewards to people who provide liquidity, and holders who had locked tokens will keep proportional claims in the new structure. (ambcrypto.com) (paragraph.com) The developer team is also rolling out a new operating layer called MetaDEX 03 to route liquidity across chains and run on‑chain auctions aimed at capturing maximum extractable value — the profit bots or searchers can take by reordering or inserting transactions — which the project says will convert some previously external revenue back into protocol fees. (theblock.co) (crypto.news)