Aerodrome: decentralised exchanges rating breakdown
Base only
The cheapest venue in the category by our measurement, at 0.0506% realised, and by a distance the hardest-working capital anywhere on this page: every dollar of its liquidity turned over 46 times in thirty days, against 14× at Uniswap and 2× at Curve. On Base it is not the alternative to Uniswap — it is the venue, with $12.48bn of thirty-day volume from a $270m pool base.
The cheapest venue in the category by our measurement, at 0.0506% realised, and by a distance the hardest-working capital anywhere on this page: every dollar of its liquidity turned over 46 times in thirty days, against 14× at Uniswap and 2× at Curve.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back? | — | 30% | 6 | 5 | 4 of 9 | +0.30 |
| What traders actually paid | 0.0506 what traders actually paid · computed · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 10 | 7 | 1 of 9 | +0.75 |
| Depth and volume | $12.48bn 30-day volume · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source$270m total value locked · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 25% | 7 | 7 | 4 of 9 | 0.00 |
| Chains and assets | 1 chains deployed · sourced · 2026-08-27 · source | 12% | 2 | 6 | 6 of 9 | -0.48 |
| How hard the capital works | 46.3× per 30 days capital turnover · computed · 2026-08-27 | 8% | 10 | 7 | 1 of 9 | +0.24 |
Measured 27 August 2026 · weights and method · decided by what traders actually paid, worth +0.75 points against the median
Has it been drained, and did anyone get paid back?: 6/10
Contract exploits with dates, amounts and — the question every other comparison skips — whether users were actually made whole. A DEX is a set of contracts holding pooled money, so this is the first question, not the fifth. Audit count is recorded but never scored on its own: Balancer V2 was among the most audited contract systems in DeFi and lost $128m to a rounding error in November 2025.
Scored 6 of 10 against a category median of 5, which places it 4th of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 30% weight that is 0.30 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 1.
What traders actually paid: 10/10
Computed by us, not read off a fee-tier page: thirty days of protocol fees divided by thirty days of volume, per venue, from public data. That single division exposes what routing, tier mix and pool design really cost, and it disagrees with the advertised tiers everywhere. It is not the whole cost of a trade — slippage and gas sit on top — but it is the part every comparison misstates.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 1st of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 0.75 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 1.
Depth and volume: 7/10
Total value locked and thirty-day volume, both from public data at a stated timestamp. Depth is what decides slippage on a real trade, and volume is what proves the depth is usable rather than parked.
Scored 7 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 4th of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
Chains and assets: 2/10
The number of chains where the venue is actually deployed, weighted by whether volume genuinely flows there. A deployment on forty chains that trades on two is coverage on paper.
Scored 2 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 6th of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is 0.48 points below the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
How hard the capital works: 10/10
Thirty-day volume divided by total value locked — how many times each dollar of liquidity turned over. Nobody publishes this, and it separates a venue whose pools are genuinely used from one sitting on idle incentive-farmed capital. It also predicts fee income per dollar of risk taken by liquidity providers.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 7, which places it 1st of 9 among decentralised exchanges on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is 0.24 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 3.
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | What traders actually paid | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Uniswap | 5 | Behind by 5 on what traders actually paid. |
| 2 | PancakeSwap | 8 | Behind by 2 on what traders actually paid. |
| 4 | Orca | 8 | Behind by 2 on what traders actually paid. |
| 5 | Curve | 7 | Behind by 3 on what traders actually paid. |
Questions about this score
Why is Aerodrome cheaper than Uniswap?
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Because of what its volume trades through, not because of a headline discount. Our measurement puts Aerodrome at 0.0506% realised against Uniswap's 0.1762% — a factor of three and a half — and the gap comes from pool mix: Aerodrome's volume concentrates in low-fee stable and correlated-asset pools that its emissions have made deep, while Uniswap's spreads across a wider range including many 0.30% pools.
What is the risk in Aerodrome's incentive model?
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That the depth is rented. Weekly emissions voted by token holders decide which pools are deep, so liquidity can move away from a pair between one week and the next, and the healthy-looking TVL number is a function of an incentive budget rather than of organic supply. That is not hidden — it is the design — but a trader sizing an order off today's depth should know it is not structural.
Is being on Base a problem?
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It is a dependency worth pricing. Base is operated by Coinbase with a centralised sequencer, which means transaction ordering and liveness rest with one company. Aerodrome exists nowhere else, so there is no route around that if it becomes a problem, and a user who chose decentralised exchanges specifically to avoid single-operator risk has re-acquired it one layer down.