Coinbase will convert existing Aerodrome (AERO) and Velodrome (VELO) tokens into a new unified AERO over a three-day window running November 2 to 4, 2026. The exchange disclosed support on October 1, 2026 and described the swap as automatic for custody customers at no charge.

Deposits and withdrawals of the legacy tokens will pause across that window. Self-custody holders must execute the migration through the protocol's own portal. The exchange handles the custody-side work internally.

How the conversion works

The migration is the exchange-side execution of a corporate merger Dromos Labs first disclosed on November 12, 2025. The developer is folding two of its own decentralized exchanges — Aerodrome, deployed on Coinbase-incubated Base, and Velodrome, deployed on OP Mainnet — into a single platform called Aero. The unified venue is targeted to span Base, Optimism, Ethereum mainnet, OP Mainnet, and Ink, with an October 21, 2026 launch scheduled as part of the merger roadmap.

Coinbase set two distinct rates for the swap, weighted by each protocol's contribution to merged supply:

• AERO holders: 1 legacy AERO converts to 1 new AERO.
• VELO holders: each VELO converts to approximately 0.044 new AERO.

The asymmetry tracks a 52-week revenue split disclosed alongside the merger. Aerodrome generated $260 million over the trailing year; Velodrome produced $15 million. The roughly 17-to-1 revenue ratio maps onto a 94.5% / 5.5% allocation of the new AERO supply between the two legacy holder bases.

What changes for Coinbase customers

The operational sequence for VELO is staged. Trading first moves to limit-only mode, where resting orders can be placed but immediate execution against the order book is disabled. After that phase ends, VELO trading ceases entirely, leaving conversion as the only remaining path for Coinbase-held balances. AERO faces no equivalent pre-conversion trading wind-down.

Aerodrome itself began life as a fork of Velodrome V2, deployed on Base on August 28, 2023 — less than two years before the merger was disclosed. Both protocols rely on the ve(3,3) governance and emissions design that Dromos Labs originally built for Velodrome, so the token-level reconciliation across chains is mechanically straightforward even where the underlying liquidity footprints differ.

What holders face next

The unified Aero protocol targets an October 21, 2026 launch, roughly two weeks before centralized exchange balances finish migrating. For AERO holders, the economics of the swap are neutral in count: a 1:1 conversion into a token whose claim now extends to a multi-chain venue rather than a Base-only one.

VELO holders face a narrower set of options. With limit-only trading pending and full trading cessation to follow, conversion at roughly 0.044 new AERO per token is the only remaining disposition for exchange-held balances. The brief three-day pause on legacy token deposits and withdrawals is the principal operational risk to plan around for active traders.

After merger news broke in late September 2026, AERO climbed 25.5% to $0.89 and VELO gained 22.1% to an intraday $0.038. The structural milestones ahead are the October 21 Aero launch and Coinbase's November 2-4 conversion window.