While much of the industry’s attention over the past year has gravitated toward stablecoins, tokenized treasuries and institutional onramps, the team behind Velodrome and Aerodrome says the real power struggle in crypto is unfolding elsewhere: in decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

Alex Cutler, the CEO of Dromos Labs, the main developer firm behind Aerodrome and Velodrome, described the exchange layer as “the second most important layer” to the onchain economy in an interview with CoinDesk.

That view is now shaping the company’s most aggressive move yet. Dromos Labs is preparing to unveil Aero, a unified DEX that will merge its existing Aerodrome and Velodrome protocols under a single operating system, and take direct aim at incumbents like Uniswap and Curve.

The rollout, targeted for the second quarter of 2026, will also mark Dromos Labs’ expansion to Ethereum mainnet, putting the firm into head-to-head competition with the largest and most entrenched DEXs in the market.

Aerodrome currently captures a significant share of trading activity on Coinbase’s Base network, while Velodrome plays a similar role across Optimism’s Superchain. Aerodrome currently has nearly $500 million in total value locked (TVL) and surpassed $1 billion in December 2025, when it accounted for roughly a quarter of Base’s total TVL, a level of dominance Dromos Labs says is repeatable on mainnet.

While decentralized finance may no longer dominate crypto’s daily headlines, Cutler argues that it reflects consolidation, not stagnation. In his view, nearly every narrative driving crypto adoption, from institutional FX to memecoins, still depends on the same foundational infrastructure.

“You can’t have global FX onchain without deep liquidity and the ability to exchange it freely, cross-network, at fast speeds and low cost,” he said. “The two essential pillars of the onchain economy are the chain layer and the exchange layer — and every trend benefits those two.”

Dromos Labs’ strategy is rooted in the belief that exchanges, rather than blockchains, will become the primary footholds for value as more assets move onchain. That thesis informs both Aero’s design and the company’s increasingly explicit positioning against Uniswap, the sector’s largest incumbent.

“One of the most important stories next year is going to be: who owns the exchange layer?” Cutler said.

The competitive contrast sharpened earlier this year when Uniswap governance advanced a “UNIfication proposal” aimed at allowing protocol revenue to flow to UNI token holders. Cutler publicly criticized the move, arguing it weakens Uniswap’s relationship with liquidity providers, the core engine of any DEX.

“They’re taking from liquidity providers to give to token holders — and that means paying less for the most essential service in DeFi,” he said.

(The UNIfication proposal is Uniswap’s plan to simplify how the protocol works and begin sharing trading fees with UNI token holders, a move that would change who gets paid within the exchange.)

Uniswap did not return a request for comment in time for publication.

Until now, Dromos Labs’ competitiveness has largely been confined to layer-2 networks. Aero’s Ethereum mainnet launch is intended to change that dynamic, and test whether its model can scale against Uniswap and Curve on their home turf.

While Aero is designed to serve retail users chasing liquidity across networks, Dromos Labs is also building with institutional adoption in mind.

“Institutions will use DeFi rails, but those rails have to be institutional-grade, that’s non-negotiable,” Cutler said. “There can’t be human dependency layers. Everything has to be verifiable.”

That includes onchain automation, reduced operational risk and compliance tooling embedded directly at the protocol level, features Cutler says are essential as capital markets increasingly move onchain.

Read more: Leading Base DEX Aerodrome Merges Into Aero in Major Overhaul