Fueled by token incentives, the decentralized alternate on Base has raked in additional than double Uniswap’s income this 12 months.
Aerodrome, a decentralized alternate (DEX) on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 community developed by Coinbase, is the largest income generator within the sector up to now this 12 months.
Aerodrome, the biggest DeFi protocol on Base with greater than $500 million in complete worth locked (TVL), has generated almost $119 million in income year-to-date, in line with Token Terminal. That’s virtually two and a half occasions the income of Uniswap, the main DEX by quantity, which takes second place with $49 million.
Though Aerodrome has been round since 2023, it launched into an explosive progress trajectory earlier this 12 months after Coinbase Ventures invested in its native AERO token, which rallied greater than 1000% within the following six weeks. This, in flip, drove up the worth of the token incentives provided by the DEX, drawing an inflow of liquidity and cementing its place because the liquidity hub of Base.
The alternate was additionally boosted by Base memecoin mania, with tokens like BRETT, MOG and DEGEN producing large buying and selling volumes of their heydays.
Regardless of AERO plunging greater than 70% from its April excessive, Aerodrome is routinely processing greater than $200 million in every day quantity, in line with DeFiLlama. It hit an all-time excessive of $765 million on August 5 as crypto markets crashed.
All that income got here at a price, nonetheless.
Knowledge from Token Terminal reveals that Aerodrome has spent $2.65 on incentives for each greenback in income generated.
Over $313 million price of AERO tokens had been awarded to liquidity suppliers in 2024, leading to internet detrimental earnings of $195 million for the 12 months.
