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The ve(3,3) model combines Curve’s ve-tokenomics and Olympus DAO’s (3,3) game theory architecture:

While many projects have tried to successfully implement the ve(3,3) model, almost all have failed for various reasons – Aerodrome is the first project that’s achieved success on a large scale.

Most ve(3,3) projects have failed because they couldn’t find a productive balance between token incentives and hyperinflation. On one hand, you want your tokenholders to be rewarded for staking and providing liquidity. But on the other hand, if the incentives are high enough, it requires a significant amount of the native token to constantly be “printed.” This leads to persistent high inflation, which eventually erases all demand for the token and the platform.

To get an inside look at why Aerodrome has been able to set itself apart from the competition, as well as the resulting growth, let’s take a look at some key platform statistics.

At first, it was necessary for Aerodrome to attract users and partners with large AERO emissions. But over time, they’ve dropped significantly.

Specifically, AERO monthly emissions topped out at ~77M AERO in February 2024 – but since November 2025, average monthly issuance is under 20M AERO.

Another critical factor for ve(3,3) to succeed is the native token lockup rate.

Since Aerodrome launched, AERO’s lock rate has never been below 50% – meaning over 50% of circulating AERO tokens have been locked to receive veAERO. Currently, 54% of the supply is locked:

Another reason Aerodrome has achieved unprecedented success with the ve(3,3) model is because their model naturally rewards users for interacting with the platform. When done correctly, this creates a powerful flywheel where more revenue is generated, then it all gets distributed back to users, who drive more revenue, and so on.

So far, Aerodrome has generated over $460M in revenue, and 100% of it has gone back to users.

And when Aerodrome-affiliated organizations like the Aerodrome Foundation and Dromos Labs earn their share of revenue, it’s redistributed once again in the form of buybacks and other growth-based incentives. 

Overall, Aerodrome’s consistent focus on community and users has made the platform a staple within the Base network. Since they launched in 2023, they’ve generated over half the total spot volume on Base, despite the entrance of major players like Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

Now that Aerodrome has solidified its position on Base, its next phase is rapidly approaching, and it’s set to drive significantly more value to the AERO token. The upgrade – scheduled for this July – has three key components:

Aerodrome is also transforming its incentive flywheel with Predictive Allocation, which combines individual benefit with efficient resource allocation in the same mechanism.

Specifically, Predictive Allocation shifts Aerodrome’s incentive model by making distributions in real-time rather than in advance. Additionally, the ongoing emission issuance rate will be fully decided by the community, rather than run on a pre-set emissions schedule. 

Now, let’s look at how Predictive Allocation improves on the current process:

Lastly, Predictive Allocation can potentially be integrated with any DeFi service. Using agentic services as an example, this would allow participants to fund actors such as agents and data providers and receive a portion of their future income.

Aerodrome’s new real-time revenue sharing model brings with it a new form of locked AERO token. 

Historically, the veAERO token has always represented governance and fee distribution on Aerodrome – and it will continue to serve this purpose until the upgrade. Afterwards, sAERO will take its place.

Here’s a look at how the two tokens match up against each other:

Lastly, Aerodrome isn’t just bringing these major upgrades to Base — it’s expanding to the broader EVM ecosystem, including Ethereum L2s and more, creating a massive unified layer for liquidity.

By doing so, Aerodrome will make liquidity more capital efficient by undoing years’ worth of liquidity fragmentation, and Predictive Allocation adds an unprecedented layer of intelligent incentive distribution, which attracts and rewards dedicated and informed users.

Since Aerodrome is one of our DeFi20 Index projects, we already have their native AERO token in the Machines & Money Portfolio. 

To increase our exposure to Aerodrome’s success, today we’re adding veAERO as our newest position.

The most common method of obtaining veAERO is to simply buy AERO and then lock it. However, we’re going to use a strategic method to buy tokens at a discount.

To do this, we’ll use Vexy Finance – a marketplace where people can sell their locked tokens.

Marketplaces like Vexy serve a niche but extremely useful purpose. If you’ve locked a large amount of AERO tokens for a long time, there’s no direct way to withdraw – your funds are unavailable until the lockup period is over. 

However, situations can arise where you end up needing access to those funds before the lockup period ends – or maybe you just want to take profits after a large move.

While veAERO can’t be unlocked, it can be transferred – Vexy uses this transferability to create a marketplace where veAERO holders can list their tokens for sale at a discount. Buyers can look through the listings and make offers to purchase the tokens for sale. If the seller likes the offer, they can accept it, and the veAERO is transferred upon purchase.

We’ll go through 4 quick steps to get access to discounted veAERO:

Sellers can also choose which token they’d like to accept; for veAERO sales, they can choose between USDC, WETH, and AERO. 

In the above image, all of the listings only accept AERO, which is denoted by the AERO token logo next to the prices. So, once we find a listing that we like, we’ll need to purchase AERO tokens via Aerodrome.

After looking through the list, we’re choosing to purchase a listing with the following info:

Now, we need ~1107 AERO to make this purchase, but the extra step is worth it for over 120 free AERO!

Next we’ll head over to Aerodrome to swap some USDC for AERO. To make sure we have enough, we’re setting the order slightly above the 1,107 mark.

Now that we have our AERO, we can buy the discounted veAERO. Here’s what we see after we click “Buy.”

After we clicked approve, our transaction was complete! Now, we can see our veAERO position on Vexy under “My Portfolio” (1st image) and Aerodrome under “Lock” (2nd image):