Aave DAO has published an AFRC proposal titled “Focusing the Aave V3 Multichain Strategy – Phase 1” that aims to shrink Aave V3’s presence on low‑activity chains and focus on networks that truly drive usage and revenue.
The proposal follows a late‑2025 “temp check” where the community backed a more selective multichain strategy by over 99 percent. That earlier vote signaled strong support for cleaning up underperforming deployments and setting clearer rules for future expansions.
Freezing zkSync, Metis And Soneium
In this first phase, Aave DAO proposes freezing Aave V3 deployments on zkSync, Metis, and Soneium. Freezing means users can still manage existing positions, but the protocol stops new listings, incentives, and growth on those instances.
The governance post states that these three networks exhibit low, persistent usage, little or no organic growth, and very small revenue relative to the work and risk they generate. Service providers still need to monitor parameters, risk, and upgrades on each chain, which increases cost and complexity for the DAO.
The authors call these deployments “clearly non‑viable today” and argue that Aave should not keep subsidizing long‑tail chains that do not meaningfully contribute to the ecosystem. Later phases could consider full offboarding, but that would require separate proposals and votes.
New $2M Revenue Floor For Future Chains
The AFRC also introduces a firm rule for any new Aave V3 deployment. Going forward, the target chain must guarantee at least 2 million dollars in annual protocol revenue to justify the launch.
This revenue floor can come from committed incentives, protocol‑owned liquidity, or other hard economic guarantees, not just marketing promises. The goal is to align deployment costs, ongoing risk, and engineering work with a clear financial upside for the DAO and its token holders.
Aave’s earlier multichain push often treated the protocol as “infrastructure for free,” while contributors carried most of the maintenance and security burden. With the new standard, partner chains must “have skin in the game” before asking for an Aave V3 instance.
The proposal builds on a broader multichain update that Aave introduced in late 2025, which raised reserve factors on weak performers and flagged low‑revenue markets for possible closure. That earlier framework also highlighted that a smaller, higher‑earning footprint can improve the protocol’s risk-adjusted returns.
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