The Aave community has put an end to a months-long governance dispute with the passage of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, a landmark decision that founder Stani Kulechov has dubbed 'the most important proposal in Aave's history'. This proposal establishes a framework that channels 100% of revenue from all Aave-branded products back 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 recent approval of a $25 million stablecoin grant and a 5,000 AAVE token allocation, valued at approximately $6.8 million. The Aave DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, serves as the governance system for the Aave lending protocol, enabling token holders to vote on key decisions such as upgrades, fees, and treasury use. The 'Aave Will Win' proposal has resolved a controversy that emerged in December when it was discovered that the integration of CoWSwap into Aave's interface had quietly diverted swap-related fees away from the community treasury.
This move has decisively answered the question of whether Aave Labs or the DAO controls the protocol's most valuable assets, its user-facing products and the revenue they generate, in favor of token holders. With protocol revenue reaching $140 million in 2025 and expected to match that in 2026, the addition of application-layer revenue from Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit will further supplement the treasury. Aave App is set to target mainstream users with a 'fintech-like experience', offering $1 million account protection per user and a card that will generate fees for the treasury. The proposal takes a firm stance against 'value leakage', ensuring that service providers build exclusively for Aave, with measurable goals and improved governance processes to reduce friction.
Technically, Aave V4's reinvestment feature will turn idle capital in lending pools into yield-generating positions, creating an additional revenue stream. 'Spokes' will expand collateral options, addressing the demand side of DeFi liquidity, and 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.
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 bank.