The Aave decentralized finance protocol has officially proposed decommissioning 75 asset reserves and gradually closing deployments in six blockchain networks. This initiative, confirmed by the founder and CEO of the platform, Stani Kulechov, is a key element of the updated risk management strategy. Its main goal is to reduce unnecessary operating costs to support underutilized markets. According to the text of the proposal, the planned changes will affect assets with a total supply of $98.1 million and open debt positions of $15.6 million, which will require careful monitoring of liquidity during the transition period.

The decision to reduce the list of supported assets is dictated by the high requirements for the constant maintenance of each reserve, including ensuring the operation of price oracles, monitoring risk parameters and supporting liquidation mechanisms. In particular, the protocol will stop supporting duplicate versions of stablecoins, such as USDC.e and USDbC, on networks where their native counterparts are already available. In addition, MaticX tokens will be removed from the listing due to the termination of the issuer's activities, as well as 21 expired Pendle PT tokens. Deployments on the Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos networks will be closed due to insufficient trading activity that does not cover their maintenance costs.

To ensure the safe and orderly withdrawal of users from affected positions, Aave will implement a phased withdrawal mechanism. At the first stage, the relevant reserves will be frozen: new deposits and loans will become unavailable, and limits on the supply of liquidity and borrowings will be reduced to minimum values. For reserves with outstanding loans, the Reserve Factor will be increased to 99 percent, which will create a powerful economic incentive for users to quickly withdraw funds and close debt obligations. The protocol's management emphasized that such regular audits of assets and network deployments will become standard practice as part of the evolution of risk management frameworks, while refuting speculation about a possible sale of a stake in the project.