Summary
Aave Labs is pleased to announce an event grant proposal for 2025. This proposal includes participation in key ecosystem initiatives at EthCC Cannes and Devconnect (Location TBD), among others.
Last year, facilitated by the 2024 Grant, we were able to create Open Finance Day and DeFi Renaissance Day which were hugely successful in its two editions in Brussels and Bangkok. For 2025, we have decided to select two main events in the calendar in order to continue producing strategic high quality and impactful initiatives.
Goals: present Aave Protocol’s latest innovations, help facilitate and open doors to new institutional and technological partnerships and cross-chain expansion, continue cementing Aave’s brand awareness as market leaders, help expand the DeFi Ecosystem alongside DAO friends and partners, bring together Aave DAO Service Providers.
Background
Aave Protocol has consistently been at the forefront of DeFi innovation with pioneering features. With a strong emphasis on security, usability, and composability, Aave has amassed a vibrant and engaged community of developers, users, contributors, and stakeholders. Aave has been the indisputable market leader for years, and institutions and fellow blockchain partners recognize this.
Aave is and should continue to lead the DeFi sector towards its consolidation, especially in this new year, where they have been experiencing the highest wave of adoption, paired with a much friendlier attitude towards crypto coming from governments and institutions.
Aave Protocol and its DAO are already the stewards of DeFi. Through hosting our own educational and networking events (DeFi Renaissance Day) and the powerful rAAVE as the main recreational event on the conference circuits, Aave Labs helps reinforce the hard work and milestones achieved by the DAO.
Overview
Aave Labs is requesting a grant for $750,000 paid in GHO for events in 2025:
- DeFi Summer Day at EthCC and Devconnect: we are looking to continue this event series. The events started in Brussels as Open Finance Day, and continued in Bangkok under its current name. Both events were extremely successful, among the most popular events in the respective calendars. We brought together the most prominent voices in DeFi to discuss the topics of the moment, in high production settings. This allowed us to leverage complementary external networks, credibility, and resources for the event. The events served as a display of the strength and the proficiency of the Aave Protocol brand.
The DeFi Day events are financed in collaboration with a selected group of aligned partners, that help as well in bringing awareness, expanding audience and elevating the brand value of the series. Some of the previous sponsors were: ZKSync, Chainlink, Sky, Lido, Uniswap, Scroll, Centrifuge, and Ethena Labs. - Merch: Aave Labs seeks to create highly coveted Aave and GHO branded merchandise to distribute at events, as part of community engagement and awareness-building efforts as well as to proliferate the ghost. Aave Labs will continue to push for the use of sustainable materials and creation of merch people actually wear, use, and love.
- rAAVE: To celebrate the community’s welcoming culture, we plan to host two more editions of the flagship rAAVE event. Throughout the past years rAAVE has positioned itself to be the most sought after event in the ecosystem. They foster community spirit and create memorable experiences. We will integrate the GHO Pass for ticketing logistics and manage press relations and social media to maximize awareness and inclusion. This year’s events will be hosted at EthCC in Cannes and Devconnect (Location TBD). Notably last year we successfully mitigated costs for the DAO by sourcing sponsors (Aptos and Chainlink) for rAAVE Bangkok, and the model proved successful, so we’ll be following this strategy in 2025.
- Side events currently being considered for small sponsorships and activations include: Aave v4 developer meetups and a hackathon, small self-hosted networking events and dinners during Berlin Blockchain Week, Token 2049 Singapore, Korea Blockchain Week, RWA Summit series, Stable Summit series and Chainlink SmartCon. Funds from any side events that are not confirmed will be rolled over to the next potential side event.
The majority of the grant will be used to create an impactful presence during Devconnect and EthCC. DevConnect week will be the marquee event of the year.
After covering the aforementioned main sponsorships, any remaining budget will be directed towards side events related to the security of DeFi and smart contract technology. Any excess funds from this grant will be rolled over to be used for events during Q1 2026.
We’re pleased to confirm that the 2024 events strategy, which included careful budget allocation and partnering with top tier projects to co-finance the events, has resulted in $160,000 unspent funds that are being carried over towards the 2025 events.The proposed budget is in line with previous spending for similar events and covers all events of 2025. A recap on last year’s events was posted to governance last February, here.
Aave Labs shall cover all travel expenses for its team members, and this proposal does not request any funds for these expenses, or include any compensation for Aave Labs’ work.
Next Steps
â—Ź Get community feedback on TEMP CHECK
â—Ź Snapshot vote
â—Ź If Snapshot is successful, then move to AIP
Conclusion
We believe that the proposed one-off budget allocation of $750,000 paid in GHO for activations and events for 2025 will not only help enrich the Aave Protocol ecosystem, but will foster innovation, brand expansion and recognition.