Aerodrome leads Base’s surge in total value locked to near $1 billion

Base, a Layer 2 Ethereum network incubated at Coinbase, saw its total value locked (or user deposits) surge to nearly $1 billion — doubling the network’s deposits since the start of March, which stood at $470 million. Decentralized exchange Aerodrome accounts for nearly half of Base’s TVL, contributing $424 million.

Aerodrome’s TVL surged from $125 million in early February to now over $420 million, following an uptick in user activity on the exchange and a major spike in the value of its native Aero token.

The development team at Velodrome Finance (a decentralized exchange on OP Mainnet) introduced Aerodrome on Base as a forked version in September 2023.

It has since facilitated a large portion of swaps on the Base network. This approach is similar to its strategy on OP Mainnet with Velodrome, which involves using a set of decentralized finance incentives and vote-escrowed governance.

The Base mainnet became publicly available in early August 2023 and has since risen to become the fourth most valuable Layer 2 blockchain in terms of TVL, trailing other networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Blast. The Layer 2 network recorded a sudden spike in daily users and transactions, reaching record highs shortly after the Dencun upgrade.

According to DeFiLlama, the network’s TVL stands at $970 million.

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