$AERO also advanced 7.6% over the latest roughly seven-day window, while bitcoin lost 2.1% and ether dropped 7%. The advance was not uninterrupted: $AERO remained about 4.9% below its Sept. 26 observation of roughly $0.898.
$AERO Outpaces Bitcoin and Ether
The Defiant calculations using CoinGecko USD prices. Baselines: Sept. 12 and Oct. 3 at 5 a.m. ET; endpoints: Oct. 10 at 5:19–5:22 a.m. ET. Returns exclude token rewards.
Trading Fees and the Merger Ahead
Aerodrome is a decentralized exchange where users swap tokens and supply liquidity. Its existing incentive model rewards liquidity providers with token emissions, while users who lock tokens and vote for pools earn weekly fees and incentives. That makes exchange activity relevant to tokenholders’ earning opportunities, rather than treating $AERO solely as a bet on Base’s growth.
DefiLlama’s volume data showed $3.51 billion in swaps over the latest seven days and $14.61 billion over 30 days. Those figures measure trading through the exchange, not trading in the $AERO token itself.
Locking also remains a substantial part of the token’s economics. The project’s metrics dashboard, which cites Dune data, reported that 49.7% of Aerodrome’s supply was locked in the week of Oct. 8. That snapshot does not establish whether locking increased during the price rally.
The price window includes a concrete development in the planned merger. In a Sept. 25 update, Aero set its launch date and added Robinhood Chain and Arbitrum to a seven-network rollout. Under the planned system, sAERO holders will direct token rewards to liquidity pools across the network and earn a share of exchange revenue, the project said.
The combination itself predates this rally: The Defiant reported the merger plan in November 2025. The September update provides a development within the price window, but the market data does not establish how much of $AERO’s advance it explains.
Aero’s announced launch is scheduled for Oct. 21 across Base, Ethereum mainnet, OP Mainnet, Arc, Ink, Robinhood Chain and Arbitrum.
