Just a suggestion, but I think a longer-term structural adjustment could help improve platform management and reduce recurring governance friction as Aave continues to scale.
One possible path is to explore an “Ethereum style” setup where the DAO has a clearer institutional wrapper and reporting cadence, while builders remain free to innovate above the protocol in a free market.
- In that spirit, it could be worth considering an Aave Foundation in Switzerland, not as a power grab, but as an entity that represents the DAO externally and publishes quarterly transparency reports that clearly separate protocol governed economics and fees, treasury inflows and outflows, service provider budgets and mandates, and any material product or routing changes that affect user costs or community expectations.
- To keep execution quality high without turning every operational decision into slow governance, the foundation could borrow the Ethena “governance by committee” model: tokenholders periodically elect an independent Risk Committee, the committee members sign a formal service agreement with the foundation that defines mandate, obligations, and compensation, and then the committee operates inside clearly defined guardrails with regular reporting. In Ethena’s approach, proposals go through a deliberation window, then the committee votes and advances the outcome for foundation level execution, which keeps accountability and transparency while preserving speed.
- At the same time, Aave Labs could remain fully free to operate as a for profit ecosystem company, more like Consensys does for Ethereum. Over time, the DAO and the market can choose vendors based on merit, which also reduces the feeling of a monopoly by default.
Just a suggestion, but a structure like this could reduce ambiguity, improve transparency and trust, and still keep room for independent builders. I may be missing context, but wanted to share it constructively.