Mellow is shutting down Autopilot, the automated liquidity management service on Aerodrome built on Mellow ALM, as the protocol prepares to replace third-party automation with its own integrated tooling. Liquidity providers with deposits in the service must withdraw before April 25, 2026.

The wind-down follows a fixed schedule. Autopilot will cease public operations after the March 25, 2026 epoch, then move into private mode. Users keep roughly a one-month window after that final public epoch to exit through the Autopilot interface.

The timeline is deliberate. Aerodrome is building toward Aero, a unified liquidity layer that merges Aerodrome and Velodrome under a single AERO token and ships with native automation. Once Aero's own Autopilot suite goes live, independent third-party tools become redundant.

Non-custodial through the transition

Positions in Autopilot remain non-custodial throughout the wind-down. They are held through veNFTs, meaning users retain control of their assets rather than transferring them to an operator. The structure makes the shutdown a scheduled migration rather than a forced exit: depositors choose when to withdraw, provided they act before the April 25, 2026 deadline.

For context outside the Aerodrome ecosystem: veAERO is locked AERO that carries voting rights over where the exchange directs its rewards. Managing those locks effectively — voting each epoch and claiming the resulting rewards — is operationally tedious. Autopilot automated that workflow.

The tool carried substantial weight for a service now being retired. Autopilot managed approximately 50 million veAERO per epoch and facilitated more than $2.5 million in rewards distribution before the wind-down was announced.

Mellow ALM has powered Aerodrome's liquidity management tools since at least 2024, including v2 upgrades designed for dynamic strategies that rebalance positions as market conditions shift.

Why Aero displaces the third-party layer

Aero is scheduled to launch on October 21, 2026. It is designed as a cross-chain MetaDEX supporting seven EVM chains, folding Aerodrome and Velodrome into a single protocol under the AERO token.

Aero plans to include a comprehensive Autopilot suite of its own, handling automated liquidity provider strategies, voting mechanisms, and rewards distribution natively. Protocol research frames the current wind-down as a strategic shift toward that integrated automation: independent public tools are being phased out in favor of solutions built directly into the protocol itself.

The operational gap

The immediate task for liquidity providers is straightforward. Anyone with deposits in Autopilot should plan withdrawals before April 25, 2026.

The harder question is the interval between shutdown and replacement. Public Autopilot operations end after the March 25, 2026 epoch, while Aero does not launch until October 21, 2026. That leaves roughly six months in which users who relied on automated veAERO management — voting, reward collection, rebalancing — will need an alternative plan, whether manual epoch-by-epoch management or another service.

The non-custodial veNFT structure offers some reassurance during that gap. Because positions remain under user control, depositors who miss nothing before the deadline keep full agency over their assets; the wind-down removes automation, not custody.

For Mellow, the move marks the end of a two-year-plus run as Aerodrome's liquidity management infrastructure provider. For Aerodrome, it consolidates automation in-house ahead of the largest structural change in its history — a two-venue merger into a seven-chain MetaDEX.

The next hard date on the calendar is October 21, 2026, when Aero launches and its native Autopilot suite is expected to absorb the automated liquidity management function that Mellow's tool performed.