AERO Inflation Analysis · October 2026 · Supply growing · projected to keep growing

AERO supply is growing, and the next 90 days should grow it faster. In the last 90 days Aerodrome's weekly mints created 61.79M AERO and lock exits returned 4.49M, while holders locked 23.88M and the growth fund locked 6.22M it had bought: net +3.62% of the circulating supply, against +3.97% on our monitor. AERO has no supply cap, and the Aero merger on Oct 22 2026 adds Velodrome holders, so we project +10.23% for the next 90 days.

The verdict, in one paragraph

Over the 90 days to Oct 5 2026, the AERO float grew by 36.17M AERO, which is +3.62% of the 999.99M AERO that count as circulating. Our inflation monitor reads +3.97% for nearly the same window, a gap of 0.36 percentage points — inside our half-point tolerance, so no warning chip is shown. For the next 90 days we project +10.23%: the weekly Aerodrome mints keep running until the Aero launch, the new Aero rewards take over after it, and Velodrome holders receive about 59.50M free AERO in the merger. AERO is an inflationary exchange token held back mainly by locking, not by burning.

Sell pressure: where new AERO comes from

Protocol inflation is the main source: 61.79M AERO in 90 days. Every Thursday the Aerodrome minter prints 0.21%of total supply for liquidity providers, plus a team share (about 220,600 AERO a week) and a top-up for lockers (about 486,000 AERO a week). The weekly rate vote did not change the rate once in the window. Thirteen weekly mints added 61,788,266 AERO, and the on-chain total supply rose from 1.931B to 1.993B by exactly that amount. For the next 90 days we expect three more old-style mints (Oct 8, Oct 15 and Oct 22 2026, about 14.72M) and then the new Aero rewards at the Foundation's stated base rate of about 11% a year — together about 61.45M AERO.

Vesting unlocks are zero. Aerodrome never had a vesting calendar: the team, airdrop and partner coins were handed out as locked AERO positions in 2023, so they come back only when a lock ends. Foundation and unscheduled unlocks are zero — no team-controlled pile released coins to the market in the window. No estate or trustee holds AERO, so the only long-term-lock flow is lock exits.

Long-term locked: lock exits added 4.49M AERO. When a lock ends, its owner can withdraw. We counted 1,295 withdrawals worth 4,492,421 AERO, and the same total shows up in two separate on-chain records. Exits are small because almost every lock is permanent: about 990M of the 993M locked AERO never expire unless the owner switches them off.

The Aero merger adds about 59.50M AERO in the next 90 days. On Oct 22 2026 Aerodrome and Velodrome become Aero. Old AERO moves 1:1, and the new total is the Aerodrome supply at launch divided by 0.945, so Velodrome holders receive 5.5% — about 116.8M AERO, or roughly 0.044 per VELO. About half of all VELO is free, so about 59.50M AERO arrive free and count as new supply; the locked half arrives staked and stays out of the float.

Buy pressure: where new AERO goes

Programmatic buyback: 6.22M AERO.The Aerodrome Foundation's growth fund buys AERO on the market with protocol revenue, collects it in one wallet and then max-locks it. It locked 3.48M on Jul 8 2026 and 2.75M on Aug 24 2026, taking 6.22M AERO out of the float. While it waits, bought AERO still counts as circulating, so the lock is the moment that matters. The fund bought about 4.31M in the window — the public rounds of 343K on Aug 12, 325K on Aug 20 and 171K on Sep 10 2026 among them — and we use that pace for the next 90 days. At Aero the fund becomes the Momentum Fund, which plans to buy back and burn AERO.

Protocol fee burn is zero. Aerodrome pays trading fees to the lockers who vote; it burns nothing. Total supply never fell in the window, and the dead address gained under one AERO. Foundation buy is zero beyond the growth-fund program above.

New long-term lock: 23.88M AERO.This is the real brake on AERO supply. The lock contract's balance rose from 967.25M to 992.86M AERO in 90 days; adding back the withdrawals and taking out the growth fund's two locks leaves 23.88M AERO that other holders newly locked, including the lockers' weekly top-ups claimed straight back into their locks. Aero removes that top-up after Oct 22 2026, so we project about 18.80M of new locking for the next 90 days.

Foundation and overhang

A team multisig holds 29.28M AERO (down about 136K in 90 days), the team wallet holds 3.32M, filled by the weekly team share, and the growth fund's buying wallet holds 1.56Mwaiting to be locked. All three are already counted as circulating, so moves out of them add no new supply. The Foundation's growth fund controls an estimated 184M–190M AERO in max locks, outside the float; it can only return to the market if those locks are switched off and allowed to run down. The relay reward pots, which hold compounded rewards for pooled lock positions, carry at least 54.4M AEROand are already counted as circulating. Lockers' unclaimed top-ups wait in the distributor (1.72M). We read these balances on-chain at every rebuild; if any of them falls between rebuilds, the outflow enters the Foundation and unscheduled unlocks row at the next refresh.

How AERO compares to other exchange tokens

AERO is a vote-escrow exchange token: new coins are paid to liquidity providers every week, and the protocol relies on holders locking AERO to earn trading fees to keep supply off the market. That makes it the opposite of exchange tokens such as BNB or OKB, which buy back and burn a share of profits with no ongoing mint, and of fixed supply DEX tokens that run fee switches. AERO's gross mint (about 11% a year) is closer to an uncapped Layer 1 than to a capped token, but more than half of all AERO sits in locks, so the free float grows more slowly than total supply.

Against Curve's CRV, the older vote-escrow design, AERO's locks are mostly permanent rather than time-limited, which is why lock exits are only 4.49M in 90 days. Against Uniswap's UNI, which has no weekly mint, AERO's supply is far looser. The Aero upgrade moves AERO towards paying rewards in dollar terms tied to pool revenue, with a 20% yearly ceiling and an expected 8%–12%, so future inflation should follow trading activity more closely than the old flat weekly mint.

What to watch in the next 90 days

Oct 15 2026: the deadline for xVELO holders to bridge back before the merger. Oct 22 2026, 00:00 UTC: Aero goes live on seven chains, the merger supply becomes fixed, and Velodrome holders can claim their 5.5%. Nov 2 – Nov 4 2026:a large exchange converts customers' old AERO and VELO into the new AERO, which may be the moment much of the free VELO side actually arrives. After launch: the first published Aero reward rate — the 8%–12% estimate against the 20% ceiling — and the first Momentum Fund buyback-and-burn, which would be the first real AERO burn. Also: how the circulating count treats staked AERO on the new token; if staked coins start counting as circulating, the float would jump without any new coins.

Summary

AERO, the token of Aerodrome on Base, grew its circulating supply by +3.62%in the 90 days to Oct 5 2026, close to our monitor's +3.97%. Weekly mints of 0.21% of supply are the main source of new AERO, and holders locking AERO are the main brake; there is no fee burn and no supply cap. The next 90 days should be heavier, about +10.23%, because the Aero merger on Oct 22 2026 hands Velodrome holders about 59.50M free AERO on top of the ongoing rewards. The key risk is that locking slows while rewards keep flowing; the key ceiling is Aero's 20% yearly reward cap.

MrNasdog Pressure Framework analysis of AERO, Metric 1 — Inflation. Data + explanation only. Not financial advice. Checked Oct 5 2026.