Aerodrome Finance (AERO)

Tokenomics & Utility

Two tokens by design

• AERO: ERC‑20 utility token paid out as emissions to staked LPs.
• veAERO: an ERC‑721 NFT you get by locking AERO; it grants voting power over emissions and entitlement to fee distributions from the pools you vote for. Lock up to four years. Longer locks equal more veAERO voting power. An “Auto‑Max Lock” option fixes a position at the maximum lock so its voting power doesn’t decay. (app.aerodrcme.finance)

Initial distribution and supply schedule

Aerodrome set an initial AERO supply of 500 million, with 450 million distributed as veAERO at genesis. Early allocations included a 40% airdrop to veVELO lockers; public‑goods and foundation tranches were auto‑max‑locked to seed long‑term governance, and small portions were set aside for voter incentives and genesis liquidity. Weekly emissions started at 10 million AERO and followed a three‑phase schedule: a “Take‑off” period with +3% weekly increases for 14 epochs, a “Cruise” phase with 1% weekly decay thereafter, and finally “Aero Fed,” where veAERO voters can nudge emissions slightly up, down, or keep them steady once emissions drop below a threshold. Aerodrome also includes an anti‑dilution rebase that grants additional veAERO to lockers, offsetting dilution when lock rates are low. (app.aerodrcme.finance)

What AERO and veAERO do

• Liquidity incentives: AERO rewards flow to pools that veAERO voters select, creating a market‑driven routing of emissions.
• Governance: veAERO votes determine monetary policy in the Aero Fed phase and control which pools earn new emissions.
• Fee sharing: veAERO voters receive 100% of trading fees from the pools they support during each epoch. (app.aerodrcme.finance)

In short, Aerodrome Finance tokenomics are built to line up long‑term lockers, active LPs, and partner protocols in a self‑reinforcing flywheel—often summarized as “emissions → votes → liquidity → volume → fees → voter rewards.” (0xgreythorn.medium.com)