Aave's 2025 Detox: 50 Reserves, 6 Chains, and One Aptos That Lasted 11 Months

Aave is weighing the closure of its V3 lending markets on six blockchains and the retirement of 50 low-use reserves in a cleanup covering $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in debt, according to a governance proposal authored by risk service provider LlamaRisk in coordination with other Aave service providers. The proposal targets 21 matured Pendle principal token listings across 11 deployments and would retire all 25 reserves on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos, with balances measured on July 28. An ARFC is a detailed proposal and precursor to an Aave Improvement Proposal; it is not, by itself, proof of a completed final onchain vote or execution.

The proposed Aptos exit comes 11 months after Aave launched its V3 market there, with available liquidity down 94% over six months and quarterly revenue below $1,000, according to LlamaRisk. Every reserve on Scroll, zkSync, Metis and Soneium was already frozen, while Sonic and Aptos remained active and are now recommended for freezing. A temperature check on Aave's multichain strategy concluded on Dec. 5, 2025, with 923,400 votes in favor and under 1% against increasing the reserve factor on underperforming instances, shutting down instances on zkSync, Metis and Soneium, and establishing a $2 million annual revenue floor for new instance deployment.

Scroll was added to the affected protocols through an accelerated process in April, when LlamaRisk filed a direct-to-AIP proposal to freeze every Scroll reserve and raise selected reserve factors, describing the measure as completing Scroll's deprecation after a rapid deterioration in network liquidity and Aave market activity. Aave published an updated risk framework on June 9, covering asset, bridge, monitoring and chain risk and criteria for winding down reserves or deployments, with this month's announcement signaling de facto adoption of those rules by the protocol.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov said in a Thursday post that the move will "reduce Aave's economic and technical risk surface as part of the new Aave Risk Framework and Technical Asset Listing Framework." Kulechov added that the action is not a reversal of Aave's multichain expansion strategy but rather a strategic refocusing on select protocols, stating that "Aave will continue applying continuous risk assessment for all assets across all deployments." The comments follow Aave's launch on Avalanche earlier this month.