The Aave community has voted in favor of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, a landmark decision that redirects 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products back to the DAO, effectively consolidating economic rights under the AAVE token. This move marks the end of a months-long dispute that began when swap fees were redirected away from the DAO treasury.
The proposal, deemed the most important in Aave's history by founder Stani Kulechov, approves a framework that ensures all revenue generated by Aave's products is returned to the community. A $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE token allocation have been approved for Aave Labs. The Aave DAO, a community-run decision-making body, will now be responsible for funding Aave Labs' activities. The 'Aave Will Win' proposal aims to make Aave fully token-centric, with one asset and one model: the AAVE token.
The vote resolves a controversy that emerged in December when delegates discovered that swap-related fees had been quietly shifted away from the community treasury. The proposal decisively favors token holders, ensuring that protocol revenue, which reached $140 million in 2025, is supplemented by application-layer revenue from Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit. The application layer is expected to generate significant revenue, with Aave App targeting mainstream users and offering a 'fintech-like experience' with $1 million account protection per user.
The proposal also takes a hard line against 'value leakage,' ensuring that service providers build exclusively for Aave and do not gate relationships or build products at the expense of token holders. Technical improvements, including Aave V4's reinvestment feature and new 'Spokes,' are planned to expand collateral options and address DeFi liquidity demand. With roughly $25 billion in total value locked, Aave is the largest lending protocol in DeFi, and the $140 million annual revenue figure positions it alongside Uniswap and Lido as one of the few protocols generating nine-figure income.
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.