Aave Governance Conflict: $10M Revenue Dispute Intensifies
- Issue:
- A conflict exists between the Aave DAO (community) and Aave Labs (development company) regarding revenue distribution.
- Change:
- Aave Labs switched from ParaSwap to CoW Swap as the primary trading infrastructure on the Aave protocol’s website.
- Impact:
- This change eliminated approximately $200,000/week (estimated $10 million annually) in referral fees for the Aave DAO treasury.
- Criticism (Marc Zeller, Aave Chan initiative):
- The move is a “covert privatization” of Aave’s assets and a unilateral modification of the economic agreement without DAO approval. Aave Labs redirected user volume to a competitor for its own monetization.
- Concerns:
- Lack of communication raises questions about future updates (specifically V4) and whether other features might also fall outside DAO control.
- Defense (Stani Kulechov, Aave Labs):
- The lost ParaSwap commissions were a “discretionary surplus,” not a mandatory protocol fee, and were not “stolen income.”