AaveToken (AAVE) tokenomics

Aave’s token economics are designed to facilitate decentralized governance, secure the protocol against insolvency, and incentivize liquidity. The ecosystem transitioned from its original LEND token to the AAVE token in late 2020 to implement a more robust economic model often referred to as "Aavenomics."

Issuance Mechanism

AAVE is an ERC-20 token with a maximum supply of 16,000,000 tokens. The issuance was primarily handled through a migration process from the protocol's predecessor, ETHLend.

• Migration: LEND tokenholders were able to migrate to AAVE at a ratio of 100:1 (100 LEND = 1 AAVE). This migration reduced the total supply from 1.3 billion LEND to 13 million AAVE for the community.
• Ecosystem Reserve: An additional 3,000,000 AAVE (18.75% of the maximum supply) was minted directly to the Aave Ecosystem Reserve. This reserve is controlled by AAVE tokenholders and stakers via on-chain governance to fund protocol development and incentives.
• Current Circulation: As of early 2024, the circulating supply is approximately 14.9 million AAVE.

Allocation Mechanism

The initial allocation of the 16 million AAVE tokens was divided into two primary categories:

The Ecosystem Reserve is used to incentivize various stakeholders, including liquidity providers, software developers, and integrators through programs like the Aave Grants DAO.

Usage and Incentive Mechanism

AAVE serves three primary functions within the protocol: governance, security, and utility.

Governance

AAVE is the core governance token. Holders can:

• Propose and Vote: Create and vote on Aave Improvement Proposals (AIPs) regarding risk parameters, asset listings, and treasury allocations.
• Delegation: Users can delegate their voting or proposition power to other addresses.
• Voting Power: Power is proportional to the balance of AAVE, aAAVE (interest-bearing AAVE), and stkAAVE (staked AAVE) held on Ethereum.

Incentives

The protocol uses AAVE to drive growth and stability:

• Safety Incentives: Users who stake AAVE in the Safety Module receive rewards. As of April 2024, 820 AAVE are distributed daily pro-rata to stakers.
• Liquidity Mining: Historically, Aave used stkAAVE to incentivize supplying and borrowing on V2 markets (e.g., 2,200 stkAAVE daily in 2021), though many of these programs have since concluded or moved to V3 with different incentive structures.
• GHO Stablecoin: AAVE holders receive a discount on the borrowing rate for GHO, Aave’s native decentralized stablecoin.

Utility

AAVE can be used as collateral within the protocol to borrow other assets. However, AAVE itself cannot be borrowed on the platform.

Locking Mechanism (Safety Module)

The Safety Module (SM) is a critical locking mechanism that acts as a backstop against "Shortfall Events" (instances of bad debt or protocol insolvency).

• Staking: Users lock AAVE, GHO, or ABPT (Aave Balancer Pool Tokens) into the Safety Module. In exchange, they receive stkAAVE, stkGHO, or stkABPT.
• Risk: In the event of a deficit, up to a certain percentage of the staked assets can be slashed and sold to cover the protocol's debt.
• Rewards: To compensate for this risk, stakers earn "Safety Incentives" in AAVE.

Unlocking Time and Vesting

The unlocking of AAVE tokens is governed by specific cooldown and vesting rules:

• Safety Module Cooldown: To withdraw AAVE from the Safety Module, users must initiate a cooldown period. As of April 2024, this period is 20 days. Once the cooldown ends, users have a 2-day window to claim and withdraw their tokens. If they miss this window, they must restart the cooldown process.
• Historical Vesting: During the initial LEND era, certain tokens were subject to a two-year vesting schedule with bi-annual unlocks.
• Governance Execution: Changes to the protocol (including those affecting tokens) involve an "execution delay" after a vote passes—typically one day for Short Timelock proposals and seven days for Long Timelock proposals.

Aave is also exploring a "fee switch" mechanism and potential AAVE buybacks from the secondary market to further evolve its economic model and ensure long-term sustainability.