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Aave is considering the removal of 50 low-use asset reserves and the wind-down of six V3 blockchain deployments as the DeFi lender reviews markets with limited activity and revenue.
The proposal from risk service provider LlamaRisk covers about $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in outstanding debt. It remains at the governance discussion stage and would require a binding on-chain vote before any changes take effect.
Six V3 Markets Earn Less Than $5,000 Each Per Quarter
Aave would wind down its V3 deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos. Those six markets contain another 25 reserves with about $12.8 million supplied and $4.1 million borrowed.
Activity has fallen sharply across the deployments. Over six months, deposits dropped 74% on Sonic, 86% on Scroll, 88% on zkSync, 79% on Metis and 95% on Soneium. Available liquidity on Aptos declined 94% to about $1 million.
Each market now generates less than $5,000 in quarterly protocol revenue, while the three smallest produce less than $1,000. LlamaRisk argued that the limited revenue no longer justifies ongoing oracle, monitoring, and liquidation costs.
Aave Could Retire 50 Reserves and 21 Matured Pendle Tokens
The separate reserve cleanup covers 50 low-adoption assets across 11 V3 deployments, plus 21 matured Pendle Principal Tokens. Together they hold about $85.3 million in supplied assets and $11.5 million in debt.
Among the assets targeted are Bitcoin wrappers FBTC and eBTC on Ethereum, where supplied balances have fallen to about $11.1 million and $5.3 million. The proposal also targets duplicated bridged assets where native versions are available and tokens whose issuers are winding them down.
Matured Pendle markets would also be retired because their fixed-term assets have reached redemption.
Existing Positions Would Remain Open During Market Wind-Down
The default process would freeze affected reserves and reduce supply and borrow caps to 1. Users could no longer open new deposits or loans, while existing positions would remain available for repayment and withdrawal.
For the six full market closures, reserve factors on borrowed assets would rise to 99%. LlamaRisk said the change would reduce supplier income and encourage liquidity to exit, while base borrowing rates would rise to 5% to encourage repayment.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov has publicly backed the cleanup. The proposal must advance through governance and pass a binding on-chain vote before any markets or reserves are formally wound down.
