Aerodrome's $AERO token has gained 48.1% over a roughly four-week stretch through Oct. 10, beating both bitcoin and ether as the decentralized exchange moves toward a merger with Velodrome that will create a multichain platform called Aero.

CoinGecko data put $AERO at $0.8535 as of 5:19 a.m. ET on Oct. 10, up from $0.5763 at 5 a.m. ET on Sept. 12. Over the same windows, bitcoin rose 7.1% while ether slipped 1.5%, according to calculations by The Defiant. Both comparisons are endpoint price returns and exclude rewards earned from holding or locking the token.

The advance came alongside growth in the dollar value of assets deposited on the exchange. According to DefiLlama, Aerodrome's total value locked stood at $396.3 million in its Oct. 10 snapshot, up from $339.1 million in its Sept. 12 daily observation. About $393.3 million of the latest figure sat on Base, with $3 million on Arc. Because TVL simply measures the value of deposited assets, the rise does not by itself confirm net inflows or stronger trading demand.

Seven-Day Gains Below a Late-September Peak

Over the most recent roughly seven-day window, $AERO added 7.6%, while bitcoin lost 2.1% and ether fell 7%. The climb was not steady: the token remains about 4.9% below its Sept. 26 reading of roughly $0.898. The Defiant's figures are based on CoinGecko USD prices, with baselines of Sept. 12 and Oct. 3 at 5 a.m. ET and endpoints of Oct. 10 at 5:19–5:22 a.m. ET, and exclude token rewards.

Fees, Locking and Tokenholder Economics

Aerodrome operates as a decentralized exchange where users swap tokens and supply liquidity. Under its current incentive design, liquidity providers receive token emissions, while users who lock tokens and vote for pools collect weekly fees and incentives. That structure ties exchange activity directly to tokenholders' earning opportunities, rather than treating $AERO solely as a bet on Base's growth.

DefiLlama's volume data recorded $3.51 billion in swaps over the latest seven days and $14.61 billion over 30 days. These figures track trading through the exchange itself, not trading in the $AERO token.

Locking remains a major element of the token's economics. The project's metrics dashboard, which cites Dune data, reported that 49.7% of Aerodrome's supply was locked in the week of Oct. 8, though the snapshot does not show whether locking grew during the rally.

Merger Milestone Inside the Price Window

The rally period included a concrete step in the planned combination. In a Sept. 25 update, Aero set its launch date and added Robinhood Chain and Arbitrum to a seven-network rollout. Under the planned system, the project said, sAERO holders will direct token rewards to liquidity pools across the networks and earn a share of exchange revenue.

The merger plan itself predates the rally: The Defiant reported it in November 2025. The September update marks a development within the price window, but the market data does not establish how much of $AERO's advance it explains.

Aero's announced launch is scheduled for Oct. 21 across Base, Ethereum mainnet, OP Mainnet, Arc, Ink, Robinhood Chain and Arbitrum. That date also gives the merger a concrete checkpoint: with roughly $393.3 of Aerodrome's $396.3 million in deposits currently on Base and only $3 million on Arc, chain-level DefiLlama snapshots after launch will show whether deposits — and the rewards sAERO holders are set to direct — begin spreading across the other six networks in the rollout.