In a significant development, the Aave community has voted in favor of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, a framework that redirects all revenue from Aave-branded products back to the DAO, consolidating economic rights under the AAVE token. This move marks the end of a months-long governance 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 $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE token allocation to 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 a single asset and model. The vote resolves a controversy that emerged in December when delegates discovered that the integration of CoWSwap into Aave's interface had quietly shifted swap-related fees away from the community treasury.
The proposal decisively favors token holders, with protocol revenue supplemented by application-layer revenue from Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit. Swaps on Aave.com and Aave Pro are generating an additional $10 to $20 million in revenue.
Aave App will target mainstream users with a 'fintech-like experience', including $1 million account protection per user and a card that generates fees for the treasury. The proposal takes a hard line against 'value leakage', with service providers required to build exclusively for Aave. Every service provider will have measurable goals, and governance process improvements are planned to reduce 'politics and friction'. 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.
New 'Spokes' will expand collateral options and address the demand side of DeFi liquidity. The team plans to invest in agentic AI infrastructure for developers building on Aave. With roughly $25 billion in total value locked across multiple chains, Aave is the largest lending protocol in DeFi, generating $140 million in annual revenue.
Kulechov's 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.