Aave is withdrawing its lending protocol from Aptos, Scroll, Sonic, zkSync, Soneium and Metis, according to a post by founder Stani Kulechov. The move will reduce total supplied assets on these chains by $98.1 million and outstanding debt by $15.6 million.
The wind-downs represent Aave's largest consolidation in years. Each of the six networks hosted minimal Aave activity: Sonic held $7.6 million in total value locked on Aave, Scroll $2.2 million, Aptos $1.7 million, zkSync $844,000, Metis $297,000 and Soneium $173,000. Combined, the six deployments accounted for less than 0.5 percent of Aave's total supply across all networks.
Aave is the largest decentralized lending protocol by total value locked, with roughly $20 billion in deposits and collateral across all chains. The protocol operates on Ethereum mainnet, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, Avalanche, Base, Lido and a dozen other networks. Its deployments have historically persisted across chains even when adoption remained thin, partly because Aave governance votes on protocol changes and the cost of maintaining dormant markets is low.
The decision to exit multiple networks at once follows low adoption rates on each. Kulechov said the protocol will proceed with the wind-downs. "The recent low adoption asset and network wind-downs on Aave should not be interpreted as a view on any L1 or L2," he said, adding that he continues to praise Ethereum layer 2 solutions.
Aave governance has not yet voted on the wind-downs, though Kulechov's announcement indicates the protocol intends to proceed. Affected users have time to withdraw funds before the deployments shut down, though no official deadline has been published. zkSync and Scroll are among the largest Ethereum layer 2s by transaction volume, while Sonic, Soneium and Metis operate as independent layer 1 or sidechain networks.
The consolidation comes as major DeFi protocols weigh which chains warrant continued maintenance. Aave maintains presence on thirteen other networks while exiting these six, choosing to assess that capital deployment on smaller chains no longer justifies operational overhead.
If Aave's governance approves the wind-downs within the next 60 days, the protocol will have formally consolidated its presence from nineteen networks to thirteen.
