ACI Retrospective 2024-present
Author: ACI
Date: 2025-04-16
Introduction
In this post we review governance activity at Aave DAO over the past year before presenting a more detailed explanation of ACI’s work and the impacts of it since May 2024.
Looking at overall governance activity from 01/01/2024, to 31/12/2024, filtered by months, and life cycle moments of proposals there have been a total of 892 proposals, with stable reliable progression through the governance process, and stable overall activity:
| Type of Governance Activity | Number | % of TOTAL |
|---|---|---|
| TEMP CHECK | 82 | 9,19% |
| TEMP CHECK Snapshot | 78 | 8,75% |
| ARFC | 332 | 37,23% |
| ARFC Snapshot | 178 | 19,95% |
| AIP | 222 | 24,88% |
| TOTAL | 892 | 100% |
For a deeper analysis of overall Aave DAO governance activity, see the screenshot of our trakcer below which is also available at this link: Aave DAO Governance
In the later sections of this post we explain how ACI has contributed to this activity alongside protocol growth, strategic relationship and BD management, operational support, and incentives distribution.
ACI through Governance: Skywards, Orbit, Merit & Dolce Vita
ACI is one of the largest, most impactful Aave DAO Service Providers, focused on Growth.
As such, ACI’s mission has been focused on being the driving force behind the Aave protocol, amplifying the voice of the Aave DAO community and leading by example, catalysing progress with a steadfast focus on results.
ACI currently has 4 projects and initiatives focused on achieving the mission and the vision of the Aave DAO which are detailed below.
Orbit Initiative
The Orbit initiative aims to elevate Aave DAO governance and reward valued contributors currently uncompensated for their crucial role. It paves the way for a potential Aave DAO-supported delegate platform program, aiming to incentivise delegate platform engagement and participation. Eligibility criteria mandate adherence to the Delegate Code of Conduct and recognition as a Delegate Platform in good standing.
Simply put, it’s a delegate platform funding initiative that aims to professionalize Aave DAO governance and reward top current contributors who are not otherwise compensated for this role.
More information on Orbit is available at the Orbit Tracker, as well as through several Orbit Renewal Programs on the forum:
ACI Dashboard - Orbit Tracker
[ARFC] Orbit Program Renewal - Q1 2025
[ARFC] Orbit Program Renewal - Q4 2024
[ARFC] Orbit Program Renewal - Q3 2024
[ARFC] Orbit Program Renewal May 2024
[ARFC] Orbit Program Renewal
Introducing “Orbit” - A Delegate Platform Funding Initiative by ACI
As can be seen in the data above, Orbit has maintained participation rates above 80% as it set out to do.
Skywards
Skywards is a service provided by ACI to help every stakeholder who wants to participate in Aave DAO governance, but does not have either the knowledge or the technical skills. Through this program proposers simply share their proposal with ACI and ACI helps escalate it and provides support while they navigate the governance process.
Skywards has powered important proposals such as [ARFC] Onboard USDS and sUSDS to Aave v3 or [ARFC] Deployment of Aave on zkSync , among countless others.
Dolce Vita
With a commitment to boosting efficiency in governance and technical implementation processes, Dolce Vita integrated with ACI’s Orbit and Skyward services to streamline operations, automate revenue accrual, and ensure the efficient functioning of delegated tasks. It’s designed to fill operational gaps, ensuring Aave protocol’s smooth functioning by managing critical but often overlooked aspects of protocol maintenance and governance documentation.
Although much of this work occurs behind the scenes, some examples of public facing outputs can be seen on the forums, here are a couple of examples:
ARFC and TEMP CHECK Framework
Aave Governance Process Document v1
Incentive Program Management
ACI has managed all incentive programs for Aave over the last year, through both traditional LM and using the ACI developed Merit system.
“Merit” is a merkle-tree-based periodic airdrop system, designed to reward Aave-aligned user behaviors and enhance protocol competitiveness, and one of ACI’s biggest wins and implementation on Aave DAO, with several protocols wanting to participate and attracting TVL and real usescases.
In this thread you can see how many Liquidity Mining Programs and Incentives ACI has managed since June 2024:
[ARFC] Set ACI as Emission Manager for Liquidity Mining Programs
The below data shows some high level statistics on incentives distributed by ACI over the past year. To attempt to account reduce impact of price volatility and give an accurate idea of effectiveness, prices for both TVL and incentive tokens have been averaged over the duration of each incentive program.
Summary of Merit programs
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Count | 18 |
| Total Budget | $20,469,280.09 |
| Total TVL Growth | $907,116,980.44 |
| Mean Campaign TVL Growth per Dollar Spend | $2,284.58 |
Summary of LM programs
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Count | 21 |
| Total Budget | $15,937,307.84 |
| Total TVL Growth | $1,648,871,729.87 |
| Mean Campaign TVL Growth per Dollar Spent | $393.29 |
Summary of all incentive programs (LM + Merit)
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Count | 39 |
| Total Budget | $36,406,587.93 |
| Total TVL Growth | $2,555,988,710.31 |
| Mean Campaign TVL Growth per Dollar Spent | $1,266.19 |
Some highlighted achievements for incentive programs:
- cbBTC campaign: Grew from 4,600 to 8,900 cbBTC in deposits
- Base borrow wstETH campaign: Increased borrows from 1,080 to 14,714
- Base borrow wstETH campaign: Delivered $517 TVL growth per $1 spent
- supply wBTC borrow USDT campaign: $2,192.09 TVL growth per dollar spent ($1,166.17 for awBTC + $1,025.92 for vUSDT)
- cbBTC-USDC campaign: $7,855.37 TVL growth per dollar spent ($3,924.81 direct growth and $3,930.56 indirect growth from interest rate effects)
Alongside these incentive programs and to improve UX for Aave users, ACI built an interface to check current campaigns and claim Merit rewards:
A preview of all active campaigns, APY, rewarded actions and rewards.
Once you enter into a specific campaign, you can see the campaign details:
External Governance Activity
In addition to the above formal programs and initiatives ACI has represented Aave externally too. Through the Aave Protocol Embassy, as well as through ACI, we have been ramping up activity in DAOs which have strategic importance to ACI with some significant achievements throughout the year:
- Received ZKsync airdrop of circa $1.5-2m at the time
- Pitched various Aave strategies to Arbitrum treasury committee resulting in 4.5k eth from Arbitrum treasury (the vast majority of earmarked funds) deployed into Aave as wstETH.
- Participated in both OpCo Oversight Committee and Security Council elections at Arbitrum.
- Organised receipt of various Optimism grants totalling circa 200k $OP.
ACI on Aave DAO Governance Forum:
Like most DAOs, Aave DAO Governance Forum is where everything happens, and for good reason. The Aave DAO Governance Forum is the official online discussion platform where members of the Aave community — including developers, token holders, and other stakeholders — come together to propose, discuss, and refine ideas related to the governance of the Aave protocol.
As Growth Service Provider, ACI focuses on maximizing opportunities for the DAO by creating new proposals and working with stakeholders and potential protocols to list their assets on Aave or deploy Aave on their networks.
If we look at Aave DAO profile on https://governance.aave.com/ (Aave DAO Governance Forum):
If we compare this to ACI stats we can see that ACI makes up a large proportion of topics viewed, posts read, topics and posts created, reflecting ACI’s commitment to Aave DAO and to making sure everyone’s voice is heard through Aave DAO governance.
Looking at one KPI which indicates the performance of ACI’s handling of governance, is the number of proposals and Snapshots ACI submitted, under Skywards or directly.
| Governance Stats | Number |
|---|---|
| Topics created | 206 |
| Posts created | 567 |
| Posts read | 7400 |
| Topics viewed | 1100 |
If we look at all Snapshots posted, there are 821 proposals overall with 3.2m voting power cast on them.
Looking at how much of this constitutes ACI activity:
| Snapshots | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 821 | 100% |
| ACI | 270 | 32,89% |
ACI is leading Snapshot creation with more than 270 Snapshots between TEMP CHECK and ARFC, representing more than 32,89% of total existing Snapshots, since 2020-09-14 (first ever Snapshot posted on https://snapshot.box/#/s:aavedao.eth. (For reference, first Snapshot ever posted was LEND/AAVE migration and activation of the Safety Module).
Site Traffic per month:
General stats (per month)
Governance Sentiment:
The chart compares the number of posts classified as either positive or negative. These are calculated when positive or negative scores > the set threshold score. This means neutral posts are not shown. Personal messages (PMs) are also excluded.
Bookmarks:
Pageviews:
Pageviews show stable but elevated levels during 2024 before increasing significantly at the end of the year.
Signups:
Signups also show stable but elevated levels through 2024 followed by a spike at the end of the year.
Time to first response:
As seen in the graphic, since ACI created the Dolce Vita Program, we decreased the time to first response from 300h to an average of 48h to new topics.
Top Referred Topics:
As seen in the image, our Merit proposal has been the most clicked proposal overall, with more than 20K clicks.
Top Users by likes:
Our founder, Marc Zeller, as well as ACI account, are the accounts with the most likes from proposals posted and replies, followed by Chaos and BDG.
Top User by likes from wide range of users:
Topic View Stats:
Again, Merit stood out as most viewed topic out of 100 for all 2024, further proof of ACI’s impact on governance and growth.
Topics created per month:
Conclusion
As this report illustrates, ACI has driven growth across multiple metrics for the Aave DAO and protocol over the past year. From TVL growth, to forum activity and Snapshot votes, professionalisation of the DAO, to processes and procedures. Both operational and revenue generating activities have improved significantly over the past year.
We look forward to continuing to serve Aave and hope to grow together long into the future.
