Training note, written on 25 September 2026 from data as of 16 September 2026. Not part of the published series.
Fees in Step, Trading Far Ahead: Aerodrome V1 Against Its Peers
The fee line of Aerodrome V1, a decentralised exchange on Base, counts what traders pay per swap, and voting token holders get part of it. Anyone asking whether trading here turns into income for those holders has to start from this line. It is read without a price: AERO belongs to all of Aerodrome, not only to this version.
Across the latest thirty days, traders paid $1.54 million in fees on Aerodrome V1. Of that, 61.8% stayed with the protocol instead of going to liquidity providers, and every dollar of it went on to token holders. Thirty days earlier their share had been 71.1%. Set beside fees, revenue and holders' revenue go up and down with them, so neither adds anything the fee line has not already shown. Does any of that money reach a holder of AERO who never votes?
Measured against other exchanges, the month was ordinary: fees rose 114.9% on the month before, and the median of the peers that report fees rose 115.4%, less than a point apart. This is the one measure behind the reading, and the quiet this note follows is that gap staying narrow.
The last day was louder. Fees jumped 192.4% in a single day, and the fee taken on each dollar traded changed by more than half, meaning the amount traded does not account for the move (fees and volume may not be counted on the same pools, a caveat that applies to that ratio).
Aerodrome V1 has had 12 one-day jumps at least this large since September 2025, and a week later fees were at or above the level of the jump day in just 1 of them.
The reading stays open for another month, and the test is set out now. In the 30 days to 16 October: if fees (as 30-day totals) move more than 5 points away from the median of their group, the quiet this note is about has ended. With the AERO price kept out of the test, the whole reading rests on fees staying level with their peers.
Trading volume, counted without the pools whose trades come from too few addresses to look organic, is where the first objection comes from: the fee line and the volume line did not travel together. Swaps on Aerodrome V1 rose 153.3% over the month against 88.1% for the median peer, 65.1 points ahead of the group. Volume ran far past its peers while fees only kept pace, and that pulls against calling the month quiet.
The second objection sits in the deposits, the money held in the exchange's contracts. Counted in WETH they fell 11.7% over the month, 11.2 points behind the median peer (in dollars they rose 13.2%, and the difference is the price of WETH). Fewer deposits beside busier trading is not the picture of an exchange standing still, whatever the fee line says.
Sources: DefiLlama (fees, trading volume, value locked, revenue and holders revenue).
How to read this note
Fees. Fees here are what DefiLlama records for Aerodrome V1: “Total swap fees paid by traders. Per-pool fee rate read from PoolFactory.getFee (default sAMM 0.05%, vAMM 0.30%; customizable per pool) applied to each swap's input amount”. Per the same methodology, part of them goes to token holders who vote.
Trading volume. Trading volume here is what DefiLlama records for Aerodrome V1: “Swap volume, excluding wash trading: pools whose daily trades come from too few distinct addresses to be organic, unless every pool token is a core asset or CoinGecko-listed”.
Value locked. Value locked is the money deposited in the protocol's contracts.
Value to holders. Over the 30 days to 16 September, Aerodrome V1 generated $1.54 million in fees. Of that, $951,413 (61.8%) was revenue kept by the protocol rather than paid to liquidity providers, and all of that revenue went to token holders. Thirty days earlier the share to holders was 71.1%. Revenue and holders revenue move with fees here, so they are one signal: only fees count in the reading.
How the changes are calculated. Fees and trading volume: the last 30 days added up against the 30 days before. Value locked: end of the window against its start, read in WETH; the change in dollars is shown only as a caveat.
Peer group. Dexs, 26 entities, Aerodrome V1 included (who they are). Each median uses the members that report the measure: fees 14, value locked 13, trading volume 14.
Points. The difference, in percentage points, between a 30-day change and the median of the group.
Price. AERO is the token of Aerodrome, which covers all of Aerodrome, not only Aerodrome V1; the price is not compared here.
Not in this note. Developer commits, users and wallets, news or reasons for any move, and anything after 16 September 2026.
Peer group: 26 exchanges tracked by DefiLlama (who they are). 'Net of the group' is the 30-day change minus the group's median.
Not financial advice. This is a research note based on public on-chain data.