Aave is moving to wind down its V3 lending markets on six blockchains and retire dozens of low-use token listings. An Aave Request for Comment (ARFC) details the cleanup, which covers $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in outstanding debt across the affected instances.
The proposal targets V3 markets on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos. It recommends offboarding 50 low-use reserves and 21 matured Pendle principal token listings across 11 deployments. All 25 reserves on the six specified blockchains are slated for retirement. Balances for the affected assets were measured on July 28.
DeFi risk management service LlamaRisk, collaborating with other Aave service providers, recommended the actions.
Several of these instances had already seen prior action. Reserves on Scroll, zkSync, Metis and Soneium were previously frozen. Sonic and Aptos remained active but are now recommended for freezing.
The proposed exit from Aptos comes just 11 months after Aave launched its V3 market there. Aptos market liquidity has dropped 94 percent over the past six months, with quarterly revenue falling below $1,000, according to LlamaRisk data.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the move will "reduce Aave's economic and technical risk surface as part of the new Aave Risk Framework and Technical Asset Listing Framework." That framework, published June 9, covers asset, bridge, monitoring and chain risk criteria for winding down reserves or deployments.
The protocol's multichain strategy underwent a temperature check concluding Dec. 5, 2025, drawing 923,400 votes in favor and under 1 percent against measures that included raising the reserve factor on underperforming instances and establishing a $2 million annual revenue floor for new deployments.
Following that vote, Aave moved to shut down instances on zkSync, Metis and Soneium. Scroll was added through an accelerated process in April, after LlamaRisk filed a direct-to-AIP proposal to freeze Scroll reserves and raise reserve factors, citing rapid deterioration in network liquidity and Aave market activity.
Kulechov said the consolidation is not a reversal of Aave's multichain expansion strategy but a refocusing on select protocols. Aave launched on Avalanche earlier this month.
Kulechov said Aave will continue applying continuous risk assessment for all assets across all deployments. The ARFC is a precursor to an Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP), which requires an on-chain vote for final execution.
