Aave governance proposal to suspend three L2 deployments, requiring the new chain to guarantee an annual revenue of 2 million USD

The Aave governance delegation platform Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) proposed a governance proposal on January 29, suggesting to pause deployments on the three Layer 2 networks of zkSync Era, Metis, and Soneium, citing that these networks contribute very little user activity, TVL, and revenue.

ACI pointed out in the proposal, "Over time, it has become clear that only a small number of instances contribute very little user activity, TVL, and revenue, yet service providers and governance participants still need to invest a lot of effort." Currently, zkSync's TVL is approximately $26 million, Soneium around $17 million, and Metis about $9 million.

According to DefiLlama data, Aave generated only $714 in revenue on zkSync over the past 30 days, $679 on Metis, and just $150 on Soneium. In contrast, during the same period, it generated over $7.7 million in revenue on the Ethereum mainnet and nearly $300,000 on Base.

ACI also proposed that any future new chain deployments must guarantee Aave at least $2 million in annual revenue, arguing that protocol liquidity is often underestimated relative to upfront and ongoing costs. Snapshot voting was launched on the same day.