The Aave community has voted in favor of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, marking a significant milestone in the protocol's history. This proposal, deemed the most important in Aave's history by founder Stani Kulechov, establishes a framework that returns 100% of revenue from all Aave-branded products to the DAO, consolidating economic rights under the AAVE token.
As a result, the DAO will now be responsible for funding Aave Labs' activities, with the proposal approving a $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE token allocation to Aave Labs. The Aave DAO, a community-run decision-making body, manages the Aave lending protocol, allowing token holders to vote on key decisions such as upgrades, fees, and treasury use.
The 'Aave Will Win' proposal resolves a dispute that arose in December when it was discovered that swap fees had been quietly redirected away from the community treasury. This proposal decisively favors token holders, ensuring that protocol revenue, which reached $140 million in 2025, will be supplemented by application-layer revenue from Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit. The application layer is a key area of focus, with Aave App aiming to provide a 'fintech-like experience' for mainstream users, complete with $1 million account protection per user and a card that generates fees for the treasury.
The proposal also takes a firm stance against 'value leakage,' requiring service providers to build exclusively for Aave and establishing measurable goals to reduce politics and friction in the governance process. On the technical side, Aave V4's reinvestment feature will turn idle float capital in lending pools into yield-generating positions, creating an additional revenue stream. The introduction of new 'Spokes' will expand collateral options and address the demand side of DeFi liquidity, while the team plans to invest in agentic AI infrastructure for developers building on Aave. With approximately $25 billion in total value locked across multiple chains, Aave is the largest lending protocol in DeFi, generating $140 million in annual revenue.
The target is to scale from $40 billion to $1 trillion, positioning Aave as a financial network that any fintech, bank, or asset manager can plug into, rather than a traditional bank.