This week, @DromosLabs is hosting a major event featuring a keynote about @AerodromeFi and @VelodromeFi
As Aerodrome grows, we see increasingly more fud across CT.
I'd like to dismantle two of the biggest critiques.
The "printing tokens" critique is economics 101 that people failed:
Critics think token emissions = Zimbabwe hyperinflation (probablyno one thinks about Zimbabwe)
They're missing thirty years of history sitting right in front of them: Japan.
Japan has been on an absolute rampage since the 90s. The government printed money, bought bonds, bought stocks, all on a scale that would make any traditional economist lose their mind. Yet inflation stayed at like 0.2% for decades.
Why? Because these people forgot the formula: MV = PQ
M = money supply
V = velocity (how fast money actually moves)
P = inflation
Q = economic output
You can print money all day. If velocity collapses and output grows, you get zero inflation. Japan proved this. The US proved this post 2008 (400% monetary base increase, barely any inflation).
Now apply this to Aerodrome:
49% of supply is locked as veAERO. That's dead money. Zero velocity. It literally doesn't exist for price discovery purposes.
Do the math:
• Weekly emissions: 3.7m AERO
• Annual emissions: ~192m AERO/year
• 49% of emissions locked: ~94m AERO/year locked immediately
• Circulating new supply: ~98m AERO/year
• Circulating supply base: 912m AERO (51% of total)
• Net inflation on circulating supply: ~5.6%
That's actually pretty solid for a year 3 protocol. Gold mines ~2-3% annually for comparison.
The "emissions > revenue" critique confuses two completely different things:
This one is even more fun because it conflates equity distribution with actual cash expenses.
Google did this in the early 2000s. They paid engineers stock options instead of salaries. The income statement showed "losses" from compensation expense. Except Google never spent a dollar. They diluted shareholders slightly but kept their cash intact.
Amazon did this for twenty years. "Unprofitable" company, everyone said it would collapse. Except Jeff Bezos was deliberately sacrificing short-term profits to build dominance. Reinvesting everything into market share, not burning cash. Now they're worth 1.5 trillion.
Tesla did the same thing. Years of "losses" while they built Gigafactories and locked in EV dominance. Once competitors finally caught up, Tesla already had a decade head start.
This is what Aerodrome's doing.
Aerodrome isn't spending cash on emissions. Zero dollars leave the treasury. They're generating $185m annually in actual revenue while spending zero on their primary "expense."
That's not unprofitable, that's positive cash flow with zero burn rate risk.
veAERO holders get 100% of revenue (literally no other protocol does this) plus rebases that offset dilution. Net dilution for lockers is around 5%, but rebase mechanics eliminate it. They're making 5-6% yearly while the protocol is massively cash positive.
The numbers that matter
• $425m real revenue generated since launch
• $185m annualized revenue growing with Base
• 878m tokens locked (49% of supply)
• 60% DEX market share on Base
• 30% of revenue going to public good fund & team wallet for buybacks and locks
• @coinbase , @circle , @animocabrands and major protocols all accumulating veAERO
This isn't a ponzi. This is blitzscaling from the playbook that created many dominant platform businesses in the last thirty years.
As Aerodrome grows, we see increasingly more fud across CT.
I'd like to dismantle two of the biggest critiques.
The "printing tokens" critique is economics 101 that people failed:
Critics think token emissions = Zimbabwe hyperinflation (probablyno one thinks about Zimbabwe)
They're missing thirty years of history sitting right in front of them: Japan.
Japan has been on an absolute rampage since the 90s. The government printed money, bought bonds, bought stocks, all on a scale that would make any traditional economist lose their mind. Yet inflation stayed at like 0.2% for decades.
Why? Because these people forgot the formula: MV = PQ
M = money supply
V = velocity (how fast money actually moves)
P = inflation
Q = economic output
You can print money all day. If velocity collapses and output grows, you get zero inflation. Japan proved this. The US proved this post 2008 (400% monetary base increase, barely any inflation).
Now apply this to Aerodrome:
49% of supply is locked as veAERO. That's dead money. Zero velocity. It literally doesn't exist for price discovery purposes.
Do the math:
• Weekly emissions: 3.7m AERO
• Annual emissions: ~192m AERO/year
• 49% of emissions locked: ~94m AERO/year locked immediately
• Circulating new supply: ~98m AERO/year
• Circulating supply base: 912m AERO (51% of total)
• Net inflation on circulating supply: ~5.6%
That's actually pretty solid for a year 3 protocol. Gold mines ~2-3% annually for comparison.
The "emissions > revenue" critique confuses two completely different things:
This one is even more fun because it conflates equity distribution with actual cash expenses.
Google did this in the early 2000s. They paid engineers stock options instead of salaries. The income statement showed "losses" from compensation expense. Except Google never spent a dollar. They diluted shareholders slightly but kept their cash intact.
Amazon did this for twenty years. "Unprofitable" company, everyone said it would collapse. Except Jeff Bezos was deliberately sacrificing short-term profits to build dominance. Reinvesting everything into market share, not burning cash. Now they're worth 1.5 trillion.
Tesla did the same thing. Years of "losses" while they built Gigafactories and locked in EV dominance. Once competitors finally caught up, Tesla already had a decade head start.
This is what Aerodrome's doing.
Aerodrome isn't spending cash on emissions. Zero dollars leave the treasury. They're generating $185m annually in actual revenue while spending zero on their primary "expense."
That's not unprofitable, that's positive cash flow with zero burn rate risk.
veAERO holders get 100% of revenue (literally no other protocol does this) plus rebases that offset dilution. Net dilution for lockers is around 5%, but rebase mechanics eliminate it. They're making 5-6% yearly while the protocol is massively cash positive.
The numbers that matter
• $425m real revenue generated since launch
• $185m annualized revenue growing with Base
• 878m tokens locked (49% of supply)
• 60% DEX market share on Base
• 30% of revenue going to public good fund & team wallet for buybacks and locks
• @coinbase , @circle , @animocabrands and major protocols all accumulating veAERO
This isn't a ponzi. This is blitzscaling from the playbook that created many dominant platform businesses in the last thirty years.
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