Hi everyone,
First, thank you to @eboado for this proposal and @EzR3aL for opening this discussion. I believe it is the natural next step in Aave’s decentralization, especially now that DeFi benefits from far more regulatory clarity than in prior cycles.
Disclosure: I was COO of Aave from 2017 to 2021, and left shortly before v3 was released. I’m sharing this context because I worked closely with many of the people and teams being discussed.
1) On the “Labs vs service providers” narrative
I want to address some of the comments suggesting that service providers “don’t respect” Aave Labs, or that include personal attacks against Labs from frustrated token holders.
Service providers, whoever they are, have also contributed meaningfully to the protocol. They should not be expected to pay endless tribute to Aave Labs. When any entity is funded to deliver work, the community should expect them to meet their obligations, and debates should stay focused on performance and alignment, not personal grievances.
What’s often missing from this conversation is that several founders of the most important service providers originally came from Aave Labs, and left specifically to work for the protocol and the DAO. That is not an accident, it reflects what many of us saw as the original and most viable long-term vision: a protocol stewarded by a truly decentralized DAO.
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BGD Labs was co-founded by Ernesto, who served as CTO of Aave Labs for a long time and was one of the key architects of the Aave protocol. Several of his co-founders and team members were also instrumental in Aave v1, v2, and v3.
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ACI was founded by Marc Zeller, who previously led developer relations at Aave Labs and played an important role in integrations, partnerships, and broader strategy.
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I will not name them all, some are delegates, some others are working with other service providers but whether ex employees, or long term community members, it is good to remember who we are talking about when using these abstract names.
I know these things firsthand because I worked with them and I don’t know anyone more committed to the DAO and health and growth of the protocol. It genuinely pains me to see the discussion reduced to “Labs built everything” or to see contributors dismissed. Aave Labs did contribute tremendously, especially in stewarding the brand and helping Aave become what it is today, but it’s also true that the protocol’s progress has been the result of many hands over many years.
2) Alignment: the growing divide
Lately, the divide between Aave Labs’ equity-holder incentives and AAVE token-holder incentives has been growing in ways that make some of us uncomfortable. The potential Horizon token and the swapgate are the main reasons why I see this proposal and the broader “ownership/alignment” discussion as so important.
Even today, when this proposal is posted (in my view one of the most important DAO discussions in DeFi), it hasn’t been reposted by the main Aave X account, while other items (like Stani’s personal purchase and a 3 month old SEC letter) were amplified. My expectation is that official channels should promote major governance discussions neutrally and invite participation. That would be far more straightforward if the DAO ultimately had control of key communication channels.
Eventually we should not have to fear that the implicit steward of the brand may at any point leverage that brand for their own benefit without it directly benefiting the DAO and especially not without DAO consent.
3) Brand and IP: why this matters
Long-term, I agree that Aave may simply become infrastructure powering finance—many users may never interact with an “Aave-branded” front end.
Still, brand and IP matter today, and I believe the DAO should eventually reach a point where it can license the Aave brand on clear, DAO-defined terms.
A simple thought experiment:
If tomorrow a major institution, say JPMorgan, decided to buy the Aave brand/IP from Aave Labs, what happens?
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It could be framed as a “win” because it might increase institutional participation in the protocol.
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But the acquisition proceeds would go to Labs (and its equity holders), while token holders would have effectively lost ownership and leverage over a key asset.
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Even if the deal required the buyer to acquire some AAVE for optics, the core economics of the IP sale would not flow to the DAO.
I’m not saying we should sell the brand to anyone. The point is: if value is being created from assets funded and bootstrapped by the community since the ICO, the DAO should not be structurally sidelined from that value. If anything like that ever happened, I would strongly prefer that the DAO, not a separate equity entity, receive the corresponding upside.
This is why I believe now is the time to act.
4) Returning to the original ICO vision
Finally, it’s worth remembering: Aave was funded in 2017 via an ICO by token holders, not VC. The original ETHLend whitepaper stated that the project would relocate to Zug and “shall use a Swiss Foundation or Swiss LLC depending on” the regulatory status quo. The status quo made it that Labs operated as a company but time has changed.
In my view, the regulatory status quo is now far more supportive of decentralization than it was in earlier years. We have an opportunity to follow through on the vision we committed to at ICO: a brand ultimately owned and governed in a way that reflects the DAO’s role and responsibilities.
(PS : In the context of the Interop Labs acquisition i truly believe we have a great marketing opportunity both for Labs, Stani and the DAO to show everyone how its done)
(PS2 : If it was not clear I am in obvious support of this proposal).