Aave Scales Back Operations, Removes Underperforming Markets

Aave, one of the largest decentralized lending protocols, is scaling back its operations by removing underperforming asset markets and exiting six blockchain networks. The move aims to reduce risk and focus activity on higher-usage markets.

According to Aave's founder Stani Kulechov, the changes are part of a broader effort to implement a Risk Framework and Technical Asset Listing Framework. These frameworks formalize how the protocol evaluates reserves for ongoing support.

The changes include removing 75 low-adoption asset reserves across multiple deployments and exiting six smaller deployments, Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos, which will affect about $98 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in outstanding debt across Aave markets.

Aave will continue to apply continuous risk assessment across all deployments going forward, suggesting further deprecations are possible as usage data evolves.