The economics behind Aave proposal to ditch 6 chains that earn loose change in revenue
The Aave decentralized finance protocol is proposing to discontinue support for six blockchain networks that generate negligible revenue. The proposal cites high maintenance costs and declining liquidity as the primary reasons for the move.
Why it matters
This reflects a broader trend in the crypto industry where protocols are prioritizing profitability and operational efficiency over broad multi-chain expansion.
The arguments is based on economics. Each of the six deployments now generate less than $5,000 a quarter. Metis, Soneium and Aptos bring in under $1,000 each, according to the proposal. That does not cover the cost of running them, which includes maintaining price feeds, liquidation systems and monitoring for each market.
For context, Aave’s Ethereum mainnet deployment generates more than $142 million a year and Base about $4.7 million, while Metis produces roughly $3,000.
Deposits have collapsed across all six over six months. Soneium fell 95%, available liquidity on Aptos dropped 94%, zkSync declined 88% to about $844,000, Scroll fell 86% to roughly $2 million, Metis dropped 79%, and Sonic, the largest of the group, fell 74% to just under $8 million.
The six hold a cominbed $13 million in deposits against Aave’s roughly $14 billion across 23 chains, DefiLlama data shows, or under 1% of the protocol’s assets.
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