Aligned Layer deposits $7M in ALIGN tokens as voting incentives on Aerodrome

Aligned Layer kicked off its token launch by depositing 7 million ALIGN tokens into the ALIGN/USDC liquidity pool on Aerodrome, the decentralized exchange built on Base. The deposit, made on the same day as the token’s generation event, is designed to funnel voting incentives toward veAERO holders who direct emissions to the pool. What Aligned Layer actually does Aligned Layer is building a decentralized ZK verification layer on top of EigenLayer for Ethereum. It processes zero-knowledge proofs so that rollups and other scaling solutions don’t each have to build their own verification systems from scratch, with the goal of significantly reducing proof verification costs by pooling verification through EigenLayer’s restaking architecture. The ALIGN token sits at the center of this system, governing protocol decisions and, as of launch day, incentivizing liquidity on Aerodrome. The Aerodrome strategy Aerodrome is the dominant DEX on Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, and it uses a vote-escrow model similar to Curve Finance. Holders lock AERO tokens as veAERO, then vote on which liquidity pools receive token emissions each epoch. Pools that attract more votes get more rewards, which in...