iAero Protocol

Rejected venues wait the longest for re-review; a rejection has to earn another look before the scheduled date.

iAero permanently locks pooled AERO into veAERO, votes the position automatically and issues liquid iAERO receipts whose stakers receive Aerodrome fees, bribes and emissions. It is a Base governance-lock wrapper, not native-chain liquid staking. No existing higher-order class disposes of that fixed underlying claim, so capacity is decisive: the 2026-08-15 survey showed approximately $1.92M, far below the version-1 below-materiality dossier’s $100M threshold.

Kill criteria: the events that revoke this verdict
• TVL sustained above $100M for 30 days

The research file

Mechanism applicability

Users deposit AERO or veAERO NFTs into a protocol-owned PermalockVault, receive transferable iAERO after a stated deposit fee, and may stake that receipt for Aerodrome voting rewards. The vault permanently locks the underlying for maximum voting power and executes weekly optimized votes. This is a fixed governance-token wrapper rather than chain staking, lending, AMM inventory, off-chain credit or a vault that reallocates principal among venues.

Current observation and lifecycle

The DefiLlama protocol API read on 2026-08-15 classified iAero as Liquid Staking and reported approximately $1.92M entirely on Base. Current protocol documentation and the live application continue to describe AERO deposits, veAERO NFT deposits, iAERO staking, voting and reward claiming. The category label describes liquidity for a permanent governance lock; it does not make iAERO applicable to the native-asset category-reviewed liquid-staking dossier.

Control and exit applicability

The protocol multisig owns the PermalockVault; authorized voting and reward roles act on managed NFTs, and a keeper performs maintenance. Weekly Aerodrome rewards flow through a harvester: 80% to iAERO stakers, 10% to treasury distribution and 10% to a peg reserve. Stakers can unstake iAERO without a stated cooldown, but the underlying AERO is permanently locked, so principal exit relies on selling the receipt and maintaining its market peg rather than redeeming AERO.

Why the class rule decides

At roughly $1.92M total TVL, a $1M to $8M advised book would be a dominant share of the wrapper before iAERO/AERO sale depth, multisig controls, voting performance or reward-token realization is tested. The shared v1 below-materiality dossier therefore decides. Reopen after DefiLlama TVL remains above $100M for 30 consecutive days, then review authorities, audits and incidents, voting and reward accounting, permanent-lock and peg risks, proposed-size secondary exit and direct AERO or veAERO alternatives.

Sources

The claims above trace to these. Where a number could not be independently verified, the thesis says so.

• iAero — receipt and permanent-lock mechanism · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: AERO deposit, permanent veAERO lock, iAERO receipt, vault, liquidity
• iAero — automated voting and deposit terms · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: veAERO NFT, deposit fee, weekly voting, protocol-managed vault, tradeable receipt
• iAero — staking and unstaking terms · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: no staking lock, unstake, reward tokens, secondary liquidity, compounding
• iAero — contract roles and controls · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: multisig owner, voting manager, reward collector, keeper, minting, backing
• iAero — reward sources and distribution · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: Aerodrome rewards, bribes, fees, 80 percent stakers, peg reserve
• DefiLlama — iAero survey record · secondary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: current TVL, Base perimeter, Liquid Staking category, survey observation

Inherited controls

The verdict above grades the protocol layer. Every position also inherits the asset it holds and the chain it settles on. The least safe layer sets the position’s grade, and the position table names which one that is.