The Aave community has voted in favor of the 'Aave Will Win' proposal, a framework that redirects 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products back to the DAO, consolidating economic rights under the AAVE token. This move shifts the responsibility of funding Aave Labs' activities to the DAO. The proposal also approved a $25 million stablecoin grant and a 5,000 AAVE token allocation to Aave Labs. The Aave DAO, a governance system managing the Aave lending protocol, allows token holders to vote on key decisions.
The 'Aave Will Win' proposal resolves a dispute that began when delegates discovered that the integration of CoWSwap into Aave's interface had quietly shifted swap-related fees away from the community treasury. This controversy exposed a deeper tension over whether Aave Labs or the DAO controlled the protocol's most valuable asset: its user-facing products and revenue. The proposal decisively favors token holders, with protocol revenue now supplemented by application-layer revenue from Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit. The application layer aims to target mainstream users with a 'fintech-like experience' and generate fees for the treasury.
The proposal also takes a hard line against 'value leakage,' ensuring that service providers build exclusively for Aave and have measurable goals. Governance process improvements are planned to reduce 'politics and friction.' On the technical side, Aave V4's reinvestment feature generates additional revenue, while new 'Spokes' expand collateral options and address DeFi liquidity demand. The team plans to invest in agentic AI infrastructure for developers building on Aave. With roughly $25 billion in total value locked, 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.