Aavegotchi, a non-fungible token (NFT) protocol centered around Web3 gaming, has decided to leave the Polygon blockchain in favor of Base—an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution—after a decisive onchain governance vote.

On April 8, 93.5% of Aavegotchi's community members supported the initiative to "Make Aavegotchi Based Again."  According to the project's governance portal, the proposal asked for the deprecation of the protocol's smart contracts on Polygon and a full move to Base.

 In a February post on X, Aavegotchi creator Dan stated the reasoning: "Given our strong ties with the Base team and the recent momentum within the Base ecosystem, we believe that the best course of action for Aavegotchi is to end our Polygon deployment and focus entirely on Base."

The shift comes amid broader market challenges in 2025, worsened recently by economic uncertainty stemming from President Donald Trump’s proposed sweeping tariffs on U.S. imports. Pixelcraft Studios, the team behind Aavegotchi, has also had to make significant staffing cuts to manage its burn rate and prolong operational runway.

Source: Aavegotchi

NFTs and memecoins, two significant Web3 components, have been hit most by the current downturn.

Polygon’s flat TVL

Aavegotchi’s migration also reflects ongoing struggles faced by Polygon in retaining users and maintaining Total Value Locked (TVL) compared to emerging Ethereum layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Base.

According to DeFiLlama, Polygon’s TVL has plummeted from its 2021 peak of nearly $10 billion to roughly $725 million as of April 8. In contrast, both Base and Arbitrum now exceed $2 billion in TVL each.

TVL is a core metric in decentralized finance (DeFi), used to measure the total assets held within a protocol—serving as a proxy for trust, adoption, and liquidity.

Dan noted that Polygon has not rolled out any substantial improvements for gaming protocols, saying, “Polygon has not shipped any significant updates or features to PoS that enhance ecosystem coherence or discovery for gaming.”

Source: Coder Dan

In contrast, both Base and Arbitrum have proven to be “performant” and “lindy”—terms used to describe projects with long-term staying power. Dan expressed a preference for Base, citing its stronger appeal for retail user onboarding.

Launched in 2023 by Coinbase, Base is an optimistic rollup designed to scale Ethereum by improving speed and lowering costs.

Aavegotchi originated through a partnership between Pixelcraft Studios and Aave, the decentralized lending protocol. According to its website, Aavegotchi NFTs are customizable digital collectibles adorned with wearables like hats and glasses, and can be traded, bought, or sold like any standard NFT.