Title: [ARFC ADDENDUM] Mandatory Disclosures and Conflict-of-Interest Voting Norms
Author: ACI (Aave Chan Initiative)
Date: 2026-02-03
Summary
This ARFC addendum proposes a governance-framework update to strengthen transparency and conflict-of-interest (COI) norms across Aave governance.
It introduces:
- Mandatory disclosures for any participant currently receiving, or who has previously received, compensation from the Aave DAO, as well as any candidate seeking compensation.
- A clear statement that COI voting restrictions cannot be enforced onchain, and should instead be treated as a social-contract norm.
- A universal expectation of ethical abstention on matters where a voter has a material COI.
Motivation
Aave governance relies on credible neutrality, informed participation, and trust in process. As the DAO grows, the number of compensated contributors and service providers increases, which is healthy. However, without clear, consistent disclosure and COI norms, governance can drift into perceived capture or legitimacy debates that harm the DAO, the protocol, and the $AAVE token.
Valuation models apply a discount to uncertainty. Clear disclosure and COI norms reduce that uncertainty by improving transparency, accountability, and the perceived legitimacy of outcomes.
Specification
1. Mandatory disclosure requirements
Disclosure is mandatory for:
- Any individual or entity with an active compensation stream from the Aave DAO.
- Any individual or entity that has received compensation from the Aave DAO in the past.
- Any individual or entity applying to be compensated by the Aave DAO, including as an author, co-author, or beneficiary of a proposal.
Disclosures must be provided in:
- the forum profile disclosure field (delegate profile), and/or
- a dedicated service provider presentation thread (or equivalent standardized location), and
- an explicit “Disclosure” section in any ARFC, TEMP CHECK, Snapshot, or AIP the disclosing party authors, co-authors, or materially benefits from.
Minimum disclosure content:
- Entity or role (delegate, service provider, contributor)
- Nature of compensation (stream, grant, retroactive, consulting)
- Status (active or past)
- Relevant scope (workstream or mandate)
Address disclosure (voting power only)
Any entity or individual must publicly disclose all addresses under their control that hold Aave voting power or receive delegated Aave voting power.
For privacy and safety reasons, addresses that hold $AAVE but do not carry voting power (i.e., all voting power delegated to a third-party address) are out of scope.
Recommended standardized disclosure sentence:
“Disclosure: I currently receive, or have previously received, compensation from the Aave DAO via [stream/grant/contract], related to [scope]. Voting power addresses under my control: [0x…], [0x…].”
2. COI voting restrictions are social, not onchain
COI voting restrictions cannot be reliably enforced at the onchain voting level. Any attempt to encode broad COI restrictions at the protocol layer is likely to introduce complexity, edge cases, and enforcement ambiguity that creates more issues than it solves.
Therefore, COI voting restrictions should be treated as a social contract rule:
- Delegates and voters are expected to follow ethical abstention norms.
- The community is encouraged to treat votes cast under material COI as lacking legitimacy from an ethical standpoint, even though they remain technically valid onchain.
- The community, delegates and voters are invited to use their voting power to counteract restrictions violation
3. Ethical abstention due to COI should be universal
Ethical abstention is a baseline governance norm. It applies universally whenever a voter has a material conflict of interest, regardless of topic, author, or outcome.
A material conflict of interest includes, but is not limited to:
- Any direct or indirect financial exposure that could be meaningfully affected by the vote (streams, grants, fees, revenue share, equity, token arrangements, or contingent compensation).
- Any employment, advisory role, mandate, or contractual relationship with an entity materially impacted by the decision.
- Any situation where the voter receives a non-trivial private benefit from the outcome that is not broadly shared by $AAVE token holders.
Expectation:
- Voters with a material conflict of interest should refrain from casting vote rather than vote YAE, NAY or ABSTAIN
- If a voter has a material conflict of interest, they must not vote.
If they do vote anyway, that vote does not count under this framework. It must be treated as invalid for legitimacy purposes and excluded from any community-recognized “clean” tally, quorum or outcome assessment, even if excluding it would change the result.
4. Proposal power should not be restricted
This addendum does not propose restricting proposal power.
Rationale:
- Proposal power is necessary for executing work, coordinating upgrades, and progressing governance.
- The neutrality concern is primarily about voting outcomes under COI, not about enabling proposals to be drafted and discussed or created.
- Restricting proposal power would increase operational friction and reduce execution throughput.
5. Implementation and enforcement approach
Implementation is procedural and forum-based:
- Improve “Disclosure” expectation to the governance posting templates for ARFCs, TEMP CHECKs, and Snapshot threads.
- Encourage delegates and service providers to maintain up-to-date profile disclosures.
- Moderation must remind participants of missing disclosures.
Disclaimer
ACI is a service provider to the Aave DAO and is compensated for its mandates. This addendum is presented in the interest of improving governance legitimacy, transparency, and durable alignment.
Next Steps
- Publish a standard ARFC, collect community & service providers feedback before escalating proposal to ARFC Addendum Snapshot,
- If the ARFC snapshot outcome is YAE, proposal will be canon.