DeFi & NFT

Story: Aave Pulls Out of 6 Chains Where Quarterly Revenue Falls Below $5,000

By Bruce Buterin

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How the Exit Actually Works. The mechanics are pretty deliberate. Aave's plan involves freezing all reserves on the affected…

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Why These Six Chains Didn't Make the Cut. DeFi protocols running across dozens of chains sounds impressive until you look at the unit…

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Aave is walking away from six blockchains. The protocol announced on July 29 that it plans to exit Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos — chains where quarterly…

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The push came from LlamaRisk, which put forward a proposal arguing that operational costs on these chains simply outrun whatever revenue they're pulling in.

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$4.1 million in debt needs a controlled exit.

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LlamaRisk's ARFC doesn't stop at those six chains, either. It also covers 50 individual reserves and 21 Pendle principal tokens spread across 11 deployments, with $85.

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The mechanics are pretty deliberate. Aave's plan involves freezing all reserves on the affected chains and capping both supply and borrow limits to 1.

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Freezing reserves means no new supply, no new borrowing, and no use of assets as collateral going forward. But existing positions stay open, at least initially.

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If the soft pressure of the rate changes isn't enough, the protocol left room for harder moves.

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See also: Aave Cuts Six Blockchain Markets, Retiring $98M in Supplied Assets

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It's a tension that's been building across DeFi for a while. The multi-chain expansion wave of 2021 and 2022 pushed protocols onto every new network that launched, often before…

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The proposal says further unwinding will get evaluated case by case, which gives the team flexibility to handle unusual positions without a one-size-fits-all approach.

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Community discussion is still shaping the final steps. Aave's governance structure means stakeholders can push back, suggest modifications, or flag risks before anything goes to…

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More context: Ethereum Stalls Below $2,000 as TD Sequential Flips Bearish

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No timeline for the on-chain vote has been specified yet. Unclear when the freeze would actually take effect if the proposal passes.

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