Bought LEND in 2017, been holding it since. First time replying and probably voting. Looks like the discussion has been getting a bit nasty already and that is no good either you are just supporting or lending/borrowing on AAVE or holding token. At the end of the day most if not all token holders wish for the price of the token to rise.
Voting during holiday season feels a bit of a rush as well when there is still an open discussion on topic that brings alot of first timers to vote and discuss.
If the DAO votes to strip Aave Labs of what they’ve built and Aave Labs decides to fork the protocol and leave, do you think liquidity will follow Stani and his track record, or stay with the DAO?
Let’s reach a settlement and get back to business.
This topic going to a vote is premature and the wrong decision in my opinion.
The implications of this proposal getting accepted or rejected are massive, and are going to cause an even bigger split in the community. We are damaging the Aave community, name and sentiment, while Aave is in its best year ever.
It would be best if all parties with a large influence within the DAO would dial down their stance, stop publicly arguing and find at least some common ground. We can resolve this in a more professional manner than is currently the case, and which is hurting everyone. Do not put this sensitive topic to a rushed vote.
I wrote this proposal: “ Call to Avara Leadership: Propose Value Accrual for AAVE Token Holders” ([TEMP CHECK] Call to Avara Leadership: Propose Value Accrual for AAVE Token Holders) calling on @stani to finally present a concrete plan for token ownership and value accrual.
The fact: Aave Labs has never proposed any value accrual mechanism for AAVE holders. Not once in years.
Hasu is right: “token/equity dual structures are fundamentally unworkable. Not just hard to structure, but fundamentally broken.”
The current model is fundamentally broken. We need solutions immediately.
What exactly is the DAO trying to achieve by taking ownership of everything?
I don’t think this is good for the token’s long-term price either.
If token holders feel that protocol revenue is not being distributed properly, there are many ways to address that:
they could demand more buybacks, propose burning instead of just buybacks, push for larger buyback programs, or ask for staking rewards.
There are plenty of mechanisms that could support the token’s value in the short term.
We can also imagine adding more utility to the token in the future.
If the DAO were to own everything in the Aave protocol, who would actually be responsible for development?
Would every single update have to be approved through a full DAO vote?
At some point, trusting the team to a reasonable degree is the fastest and most rational approach.
That model has worked well so far, and I believe it will continue to work going forward.
Why do we need Stani or Aave Labs to propose a method for token value accrual? Is the protocol’s (large and growing) treasury not controlled by the DAO? What do Stani and Aave Labs have to do with it?
Excellent question. Let me break down why we need this clarity.
Yes, the DAO controls the treasury. But that’s not the same as token holders receiving value accrual.
Think of it this way:
Traditional Company:
∙ Shareholders fund operations
∙ Company builds products
∙ Profits flow back to shareholders
∙ Clear ownership of IP and assets
Current AAVE Model:
∙ Token holders fund Labs through DAO treasury
∙ Labs builds products and retains IP ownership
∙ Revenue flows to… Avara equity holders?
∙ Token holders get… governance rights only?
The Disconnect:
The DAO treasury has paid Labs for years. With those funds, Labs has:
∙ Built interfaces (now adding fees without revenue share)
∙ Created the Aave brand (now used to promote Avara products)
∙ Developed v3 and v4 (we still don’t know how staking will work)
∙ the AAVE app
But where does the value flow?
That’s what we don’t know. There’s zero framework explaining:
1. Revenue sharing between Labs and token holders
2. IP ownership (DAO vs. Avara)
3. Token utility beyond governance
4. How token holders benefit from DAO-funded development
Is it unreasonable to ask:
∙ Should Labs keep 100% of revenue from products built with AAVE’s brand?
∙ Should Avara own 100% of IP developed with DAO treasury?
∙ What exactly do AAVE token holders own?
This isn’t about removing Labs. It’s about establishing what token ownership means.
The DAO treasury funding Labs doesn’t automatically mean token holders receive value. That’s precisely the broken model we’re trying to fix.
Does this clarify the issue?
Aave Labs built a protocol and frontend with funding from an ICO and the DAO treasury. The protocol makes a lot of money which flows entirely to the DAO treasury, and the DAO is controlled entirely by the tokenholders. The frontend itself has so far made little or no money but there is a path for it to start making money too. It is a good thing that Aave Labs has invented ways to make money because they build on top of the Aave protocol and the more the protocol is used, the more money the protocol makes.
Token ownership means whatever the Aave smart contracts say it means, and lucky for us the smart contracts say tokenholders are the controllers and thereby the beneficiaries of the most lucrative protocol in crypto.
A settlement should be negotiated between Aave Labs and the DAO since the former has historically received funding from the latter. Demanding that Aave Labs turn over its assets to the DAO instead is not only unrealistic but unproductive and detrimental to every party involved.
I am watching this governance crisis unfold, and I am alarmed that we are rushing a ‘Brand Ownership’ vote without an Operational Handover Plan.
Regardless of the political ‘Trust’ issues being debated here, we are ignoring a massive Execution Risk:
If this vote passes and the DAO ‘seizes’ the aave.com domain from Aave Labs, who manages the DNS and Incident Response tomorrow?
The Risk: If we alienate the current operator (Aave Labs) without a signed Service Level Agreement (SLA) or a designated ‘Technical Council’ to take over keys, we are leaving the frontend undefended.
The Scenario: If a malicious injection occurs on the frontend 24 hours after this ‘hostile’ transfer, does the DAO have the keys to revert it? Or are we relying on the goodwill of the entity we just fired?
My Recommendation:
We need to pause the political fighting and define a ‘Transition of Services’ workflow. Voting on ‘Ownership’ without voting on ‘Maintenance’ is reckless governance.
Let’s get Aave back on track. No permanent damage has been done and we can turn this into an opportunity to tie up a big loose end and eliminate uncertainty.
It’s wild how a bunch of people here are arguing about stuff that has nothing to do with the actual vote, and using “reasons” that are either out of scope or just describing the current status quo.
Here is what will happen next:
People need to get this straight: the DAO needs Labs, not the other way around. Labs doesn’t need the DAO anymore, so they’re trying to drop the obligation that only drags them down.
This proposal was basically the DAO saying “if it’s called Aave, the DAO should get some piece of the profits, right? …right?” and Labs answered pretty clearly: “NO”.
So yeah. If you hold $AAVE and you want the DAO to get anything from the Aave brand going forward, you vote YES. Not that it would help… If you don’t care about the DAO or the $AAVE token, you vote NO.
As simple as that.
Aave Will Win.
I’ve read most of this.
Maybe DAO tokens are toxic after all ?
I mean if we are fighting for them to finally capture value, aren’t we defeating the original purpose of blockchain networks ?
The DAO has been gamed the same way traditional governments get gamed by value extractors.
Maybe zero-governance DeFi is the way.
And for the rest, put your equities/stocks natively on-chain.