Aave recently passed a major governance proposal to conduct a major cleanup of its V3 multi-chain deployments.

There are two core actions: First, for underperforming chains like Polygon, Gnosis, BNB Chain, and Optimism, the Reserve Factor will be increased (in simple terms, the protocol will charge more fees), and they'll be given a 12-month observation period—if revenue still doesn't improve, Aave may consider pulling out. Second, deployments on zkSync, Metis, and Soneium will be directly cut.

The most aggressive move is the introduction of a hard rule: Want Aave to deploy on a new chain in the future? It must contribute at least $2 million in annual revenue—otherwise, it's off the table.

This actually reflects a trend—DeFi protocols are shifting from "deploy everywhere possible" to "deploy only where there's real revenue." After all, maintaining so many chains isn't cheap, and resources need to be directed toward areas that truly add value. For public chains that already struggle with liquidity, this puts a lot of pressure on them.