Aero Begins Rolling Out MEV Tax on Select OP Mainnet Liquidity Pools
Aero has started a pilot MEV tax on select OP Mainnet Slipstream V3 pools, directing fees from high priority-fee trades to liquidity providers and staked AERO holders.
Aero, the decentralised exchange formed from the merger of Aerodrome and Velodrome, has begun rolling out a maximal extractable value (MEV) tax on select pools on OP Mainnet. The pilot, announced by @aeroxyz, is aimed at capturing value from traders who pay extra to have their transactions processed ahead of others.
How the MEV Tax Works
The mechanism applies an additional fee that rises with the amount a trade pays to jump the queue, up to a set cap. The revenue goes to liquidity providers and to staked $AERO holders rather than to block builders.
Aero's own documentation describes the design in similar terms. Every swap pays trading fees, and what Aero calls Smart Fees add a dynamic fee premium when markets move fast, plus an MEV tax on swaps that bid high priority fees. Technical documentation for third-party integrations adds that the factory only charges the tax on transactions paying a priority fee above the module's threshold. Ordinary retail trades are therefore not expected to be affected.
The tax runs on Aero's Slipstream V3 pools, which already charge higher fees when markets move fast. Slipstream's concentrated liquidity pools raise fees during periods of market volatility and lower them during calm periods.
Aero is starting with cautious settings. The team plans to gather data from the pilot before expanding the tax to more pools and chains.
Background: Aero's Launch and OP Mainnet Footprint
Aero launched after the merger of the two exchanges. The combined exchange went live on October 21, 2026, across Base, Ethereum mainnet, OP Mainnet, Arbitrum, Ink, Arc and Robinhood Chain, according to core developer Dromos Labs. The MEV tax was part of the plan from the start: transactions whose priority fees exceed the threshold for ordinary retail transactions pay an additional fee, distributed to LPs or sAERO holders in the same way as trading fees.
OP Mainnet is a key market for the protocol. According to the project, Aerodrome accounted for 58% of DEX trading volume on Base in the third quarter, while Velodrome accounted for 60% on OP Mainnet. Revenue has so far been weighted toward Base. Based on Aero's Dune data page, Velodrome's total revenue was about $69.8 million as of mid-October 2026, of which $64.8 million came from OP Mainnet.
The pilot gives Aero a way to test whether the added fee income can improve returns for liquidity providers without discouraging trading. Results from OP Mainnet are likely to shape how the tax is applied elsewhere on the network.
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