The Aave community has voted in favor of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, a landmark decision that grants 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products to the DAO and consolidates economic rights under the AAVE token. This move marks the end of a 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, has passed with a landslide vote.
As a result, the DAO will now be responsible for funding Aave Labs' activities, with a $25 million stablecoin grant and 5,000 AAVE token allocation approved. The Aave DAO, a community-run decision-making body, will oversee the protocol's upgrades, fees, and treasury use. 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 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, will be 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,' requiring service providers to build exclusively for Aave and adhere to measurable goals. Governance process improvements are planned to reduce friction and politics. 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 also 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. The stated 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.