A major governance dispute has erupted within the Aave ecosystem, pitting the protocol's founder and developer, Aave Labs, against the Aave DAO and its largest delegates. The conflict centers on accusations that Aave Labs, led by founder Stani Kulechov, is attempting to privatize revenue streams that were previously directed to the decentralized autonomous organization.
The controversy began on December 11 when the pseudonymous delegate Ezr3al, the DAO's largest delegate, scrutinized a December 4 announcement from Aave Labs. The company had partnered with decentralized exchange CoWSwap to integrate a token-swapping feature into the Aave website interface. The core issue is that the interface already had a revenue-generating swap feature from a previous provider, Velora (formerly Paraswap), and that revenue—approximately $1.1 million in 2025—was directed to the DAO. Revenue from the new CoWSwap integration, however, is going to Aave Labs, with Ezr3al estimating it could be at least $10 million annualized.
In the DAO forum, Aave Labs defended its position, arguing it owns and controls the interface and that collecting fees on swaps is a reasonable way to defray operational costs. The company stated the DAO was "free to create a DAO-run interface." This stance was strongly opposed by key community figures. Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative, argued that Aave Labs had a fiduciary duty to the DAO and that there was a tacit agreement allowing the company to use the Aave brand in return for directing interface revenue to the cooperative. Kulechov countered that past revenue was donated due to "regulatory uncertainty" and called the idea of a fiduciary duty "nonsense."
The dispute has escalated, inspiring multiple governance proposals. One proposal, floated on December 29 by Ernesto Boado of Bgdlabs, seeks a token holder vote to transfer control of Aave's web domains, social media accounts, and trademarks to the DAO via a legal wrapper. This proposal, viewed nearly 4,000 times, has gained significant traction, with support from Ezr3al and even Aave Labs' former COO, Jordan Lazaro Gustave, who called it "the natural next step in Aave’s decentralisation."
Other more extreme proposals have been suggested in the forum, including having the DAO purchase a competitor, Spark, and a so-called "poison pill" proposal to sue Aave Labs for full ownership of all code, intellectual property, brand, equity, and past revenue. The incident highlights deep tensions in the process of decentralizing control from a founding team to a token-holder community, with Marc Zeller framing the fundamental question: "When you own $AAVE, what do you actually own?"
