Aave ARFC proposes winding down six V3 deployments and offboarding 50 low-use reserves
The cleanup covers $98.1M supplied and $15.6M debt as of July 28, with Sonic and Aptos still active but flagged for freezing.
Aave governance is weighing an ARFC-stage proposal to wind down Aave V3 markets on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos while retiring dozens of low-use listings. The recommended cleanup spans $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in debt, with balances measured on July 28.
Key Takeaways
- An ARFC-level governance item proposes winding down Aave V3 deployments on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos, alongside broader reserve offboarding.
- The targeted scope totals $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in debt, with balances measured on July 28.
- LlamaRisk recommended offboarding 50 low-use reserves and 21 matured Pendle principal token listings across 11 deployments, plus retiring all 25 reserves on the six targeted chains.
- Scroll, zkSync, Metis and Soneium reserves were already frozen, while Sonic and Aptos remained active and were recommended for freezing.
Aave’s ARFC Targets Six V3 Deployments for Wind-Down
Aave governance is considering a multi-chain cleanup that would unwind Aave V3 markets on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos and remove a long tail of low-use listings. The package is framed as a risk and maintenance exercise rather than a growth initiative, with the stated goal of reducing operational surface area across deployments.
The item is still at the ARFC stage, which matters for positioning. An ARFC is a request-for-comment phase used to gather feedback before a formal Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP) is drafted, voted on, and executed onchain. Until it clears that pipeline, the “wind-down” is best treated as live governance risk, not a completed shutdown.
Aptos is the most explicit chain-level deprecation case in the packet. The proposed exit comes roughly 11 months after Aave launched V3 on Aptos, and LlamaRisk cited a 94% decline in available liquidity over six months alongside quarterly revenue below $1,000.
The Numbers Behind the Cleanup: $98.1M Supplied, $15.6M Debt
The recommendation quantified the footprint it wants to unwind: $98.1 million of supplied assets and $15.6 million of outstanding debt across the targeted cleanup scope, with balances measured on July 28.
For traders, those figures are less about headline TVL and more about mechanics. Wind-downs and offboardings change where borrow demand and collateral supply can sit, and they can force migrations into deeper venues. The second-order effect is liquidity concentrating on the deployments that remain supported, while thin markets lose the ability to attract incremental supply or leverage.
The proposal also extends beyond chain exits. LlamaRisk recommended offboarding 50 low-use reserves and 21 matured Pendle principal token (PT) listings across 11 deployments, signaling that the cleanup is as much about pruning inventory as it is about pruning chains.
Chain Status Check: Frozen Markets vs. Active Markets Recommended for Freeze
Most of the immediate “market impact” is already partially priced in operationally because four of the six targeted chains were frozen at the reserve level. Every reserve on Scroll, zkSync, Metis and Soneium was already frozen at the time of the recommendation.
That leaves Sonic and Aptos as the two deployments still active but explicitly recommended for freezing. If governance moves to freeze those reserves, the practical impact would concentrate there first, since freezes typically halt new deposits and borrows while still allowing users to manage and unwind existing positions.
The broader context is that Aave has been tightening its multichain posture for months. A multichain strategy “temp check” concluded on Dec. 5, 2025 with 923,400 votes in favor and under 1% against measures that included shutting down zkSync, Metis and Soneium instances and setting a $2 million annual revenue floor for new instance deployment.
Governance Signals to Monitor Before This Becomes an AIP
The first gating item is whether the ARFC advances into a formal AIP, and the timing of any onchain vote and execution. Until that happens, timelines and parameters remain uncertain.
The second is whether governance takes explicit action to freeze Sonic and Aptos reserves, the two targeted chains still active in the recommendation.
Traders also need the full enumerated list of the 50 low-use reserves and the 21 matured Pendle PT listings slated for offboarding, plus the specific wind-down parameters and schedule. The packet does not include those details.
Finally, the July 28 snapshot ($98.1 million supplied and $15.6 million debt) is a moving target. If users unwind or migrate ahead of any freeze or wind-down, those balances will change, and the eventual execution risk should compress with them.
Why This Reads Like Risk-Framework Enforcement, Not a Broad Retreat
I read this as Aave operationalizing its updated risk posture, not panicking out of multichain. Stani Kulechov framed the move as a way to “reduce Aave’s economic and technical risk surface as part of the new Aave Risk Framework and Technical Asset Listing Framework,” and added, “Aave will continue applying continuous risk assessment for all assets across all deployments,” which is consistent with selective pruning.
The threshold that matters is whether this ARFC turns into an AIP with concrete freeze and wind-down parameters, because that is when “cleanup” becomes enforceable market structure. If Sonic and Aptos are frozen and positions migrate without friction, the setup starts to look structural rather than narrative-driven, and it matters in practical terms because it concentrates lending liquidity and leverage into fewer, deeper Aave venues.
