Why DeFi giant Aave is pulling the plug on six hyped blockchains making less than $5,000 a quarter
LlamaRisk proposed winding down Aave V3 on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos through an ARFC covering 25 reserves with $12.8 million supplied and about $4.1 million in debt on a staged exit path. The case is that support and operational costs outweigh revenue: Sonic, Scroll, and zkSync each earn under $5,000 quarterly, while Metis, Soneium, and Aptos earn under $1,000. For these six markets, the plan would freeze all reserves, set supply and borrow caps to 1, and for reserves with debt apply a 99% reserve factor plus a 5% base borrow rate. Existing positions would stay open initially, but new supply, borrowing, and collateral use would stop. Lower supplier yield is meant to push withdrawals and repayment. The proposal also targets separate reserves and matured Pendle tokens across other deployments. Later steps could tighten rates, lower liquidation thresholds, or switch to fixed-price oracle adapters if balances remain.
