Aave’s governance fight over swap fees has ended with a decisive vote. The DAO approved the “Aave Will Win” proposal, returning all revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO. The move also places Aave Labs under DAO funding through a $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE tokens.
The vote closes a dispute that surfaced in December. At that time, delegates said CoWSwap’s integration into Aave’s interface had redirected swap fees away from the community treasury. From there, the debate widened into a larger struggle over who controlled Aave’s products, users, and revenue.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov described the proposal as the most important in Aave’s history. The framework directs 100% of revenue from all Aave-branded products back to the DAO. It also consolidates economic rights under one asset, the AAVE token.
As a result, the DAO now funds Aave Labs directly. Sunday’s vote approved a $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE tokens for the company. Based on the figures in the proposal, the token allocation equals about $6.8 million.
Aave DAO manages the lending protocol through token-holder votes. Holders vote on upgrades, fees, and treasury use. In this case, the vote answered the core issue exposed in December: who controls the value created by Aave’s products?
The proposal was in favor of token holders. Kulechov wrote that AAVE ownership now represents the protocol’s economic rights as well as the brand, users, and integrations. He also said Aave Labs will work only on Aave-related products under the new model.
That structure reaches beyond core protocol fees. Aave’s revenue reached $140 million in 2025 and is tracking at a similar pace in 2026. On top of that, products such as Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit now add application-layer revenue.
Swaps on Aave.com and Aave Pro already generate an extra $10 million to $20 million, according to the proposal. The proposal also targets what Kulechov called value leakage. Service providers must now build only for Aave and avoid products that divert value from token holders.
The vote arrived during a turbulent period for Aave’s contributor base. BGD Labs, a longtime technical contributor, ended its engagement on April 1 and cited centralization concerns. Soon after, Chaos Labs also announced its exit.
Chaos Labs co-founder Omer Goldberg told The Block that the firm’s DAO-approved $3 million 2025 budget fell short of the estimated $8 million needed to oversee both V3 and V4. Even so, Aave kept moving forward with its next phase. Aave V4 went live on the Ethereum mainnet in late March after a separate AIP passed with about 60% support.
On the technical side, V4 introduces a reinvestment feature. That system puts idle float capital in lending pools into yield-generating positions. In turn, Aave adds a revenue stream that did not exist in V3.
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The roadmap also expands outward. New “Spokes” aim to widen collateral options and meet demand for DeFi liquidity. At the same time, the team plans to invest in agentic AI infrastructure for developers building on Aave.
Aave App targets mainstream users with what Kulechov called a fintech-like experience. The product plans to offer $1 million in account protection per user. A card is also set to launch and generate fees for the treasury.
Aave holds about $25 billion in total value locked across several chains. That keeps it as the largest lending protocol in DeFi, according to The Block’s data. Kulechov’s target now stretches from $40 billion to $1 trillion, with Aave positioned as a financial network that fintechs, banks, and asset managers can plug into.
Aave DAO ended its governance dispute by approving the Aave Will Win proposal. The decision returns revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO, funds Aave Labs directly, and places the AAVE token at the center of future growth.
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