Aave to retire dozens of reserves and six chain deployments
Regulation & Gov ·
Aave plans to phase out 50 thinly used asset reserves and pull back from six blockchain networks in a move to trim risk exposure across its lending markets.
Founder Stani Kulechov outlined the changes, which touch Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos, according to wublockchain.xyz. Alongside the reserve cuts, the protocol will also close out 21 Pendle principal tokens that have already matured. Together, the adjustments cover roughly $98.1 million worth of supplied funds and $15.6 million in outstanding debt.
The rationale centers on paring back both financial and operational exposure tied to markets that have drawn limited usage. A governance discussion posted on governance.aave.com frames the deprecations as a way to consolidate the protocol's footprint rather than spread liquidity and maintenance effort across underperforming deployments. The plan does not touch Aave's core operations on its most active chains.
The scale of the wind-down stands out mainly in contrast to Aave's overall size: the protocol carries about $14.3 billion in total value locked spread across 23 chains, making the affected sum a small fraction of its footprint. Coverage from theblock.co frames the proposal as a targeted cleanup rather than a broader retreat from multi-chain lending. Additional detail on the mechanics of the process is tracked at leviathan.news.
Multiple accounts of the plan have circulated with slightly different counts, some referencing 75 reserves rather than 50, suggesting the final scope may still be subject to governance review or revision. It remains unclear when the deprecations will take effect, whether users on the six affected networks will need to manually withdraw positions, and whether the reserve count will be finalized before execution. Further governance votes and community feedback are likely to shape the eventual rollout.