Can someone explain to me why most are against Labs launching this product/own token but were fine with similar terms for WLFI?
Hi Stani
RWA and tokenization should be under the AAVE’s umbrella. It’s the most important product that we can have, and the AAVE token should rule it all, under AAVE’ governance & guidance. WLI is just another market, similar to what we have with Etherfi or LDO.
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WLFI proposed to share everything accordingly the framework the DAO has for forks or whitelabel instance and their token is not affiliated with the Aave token in anyway.
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Yeah. Most I’ve spoken to, myself included, always expected Aave Arc 2.0 to be an extension of/fall under Aave itself. Governance to some degree, value accrual to Aave, but also the positive mindshare of a product like this. Reinforcing Aave’s value proposition as a market leader.
Secondly, see it through a different lens: the general crowd doesn’t care about the difference between the DAO and Labs, it’s all just Aave for them. Another token proposed by the founding team/Aave Labs will naturally be seen as dilutive. And as mentioned before, this product is something that was expected to fall under Aave.
As for WLFI, it is clearly perceived as the different entity it is. It is not related to Aave in any way besides making use of its tech.
It’s all about optics here and absolutely crucial to understand people’s perspectives.
No reason to launch another token and dilute existing AAVE holders. Myself along with multiple other whales would have no other option than to sell our AAVE tokens if this proposal for another token launch goes through. I’m all for Horizon ( although I thought we already have AAVE institutional) but the token would devastate existing AAVE holders.
We must vote on this
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Aave Labs is grateful for the engagement seen in this post, and would like to acknowledge and address the concerns of the community.
As stated in the DAO’s [ARFC ADDENDUM] Updated Framework for ARFC and TEMP CHECK Proposals, the objective of all TEMP CHECKs is to “gauge community sentiment on a specific proposal.” The Horizon proposal aims to do exactly that: foster discussion. By revealing it to everyone simultaneously, the intention is to reduce information asymmetry in the DAO and allow everyone an unbiased, equal opportunity to comment in whichever manner they see fit. Aave Labs remains committed to decentralization and endorses the introduction of new initiatives openly, enabling transparent collaboration across the community.
Aave Labs would like to preface this response by acknowledging the concerns about Horizon potentially having its own token: there is, of course, only one token in the Aave ecosystem, and that is AAVE, full stop. Horizon is a separate, standalone initiative that exists outside of the Aave ecosystem, broadly focused on RWAs and institutional adoption, of which lending and borrowing are only subsets. Given the legal and regulatory requirements of operating such a business, scaling Horizon within the framework of an existing DAO presents challenges that would ultimately limit its ability to function and address institutional interests. This is one of the main reasons why Arc failed in the first place.
Aave Labs also wishes to highlight its clear alignment with the DAO and the success of the protocol, given the large stakes at play and its unwavering commitment to building Aave and the DeFi space over the past seven years. Harming Aave or its token is the last thing Aave Labs intends. In fact, Aave Labs has been promoting the vertical integration of GHO and the Aave Protocol in other independent products of the Avara family. Horizon, along with its RWA market, would serve as another avenue to generate revenue for the Aave DAO.
Additionally, it remains uncertain whether a dedicated Horizon token will be required, but introducing one could potentially facilitate efforts such as incentives and redistribution, ultimately increasing the Aave DAO’s earnings. It would be unreasonable to ask the DAO to allocate AAVE for this purpose, given Horizon’s independent nature. Horizon would be responsible for expanding its own products, like any other business building on the Aave stack in the future, with a focus on returning fair value to the underlying Aave infrastructure.
Lastly, Aave Labs would like to address other topics raised by community members and service providers:
So overall there are a lot questions left open from this proposal but its concerning to see the Aave token kind of being ditched for another product which uses 100% of the Aave codebase which the DAO paid for in several funding proposal and just last year for v4 (12 million).
- Considering that the TEMP CHECK references the [ARFC] Framework for Instances and Friendly Forks for the token component – and that Aave Labs contributed more than double the initial amount, although the community perceives it to be insufficient – it may be worth for the community to revisit the Friendly Fork Framework.
Horizon will likely take months, if not years, to become fully profitable and sustainable. So the decreasing % over four years also feels unfair.
I do think that solid revenue will only begin in year 3 and later, at which point profit share will be only 10%.
- These assumptions are valid and will be taken into account when revisiting the revenue share structure.
The Aave DAO and its service providers will oversee the Horizon’s RWA product’s operational functionality.
What does this mean in the context of Horizon? To some, this can read as “keep the lights on for us and you get a small piece of the pie”. I think this needs clarification, as the profit sharing section is difficult to contextualize otherwise.
- Similar to other Licensed Instances, this initiative is primarily focused on risk management alignment. Aave Labs will elaborate further on this topic if the proposal advances to the ARFC stage.
And we, the DAO, are supposed to use a third of our breadcrumb allocation to incentivize usage of their protocol when they eventually keep 90% of the revenue for themselves?
- The original TEMP CHECK proposes allocating 15% to the DAO, including a 3% portion for Aave ecosystem incentives that is not specifically designated for the RWA market. As previously stated, Horizon will independently pursue the growth of its operations.
That budget was then used to build V4 and cover the payroll for people working on this “Horizon” project, only for them to come back to us, keeping 85% of a (unnecessary & dilutive) new token supply.
- The terms governing the development of Aave V4 are clearly outlined in the original V4 proposal, which this community approved. This innovative undertaking is a complex effort, with costs that may sometimes be underestimated. Aave Labs aims to address any gaps as Aave V4 is formally introduced.
Aave Labs looks forward to gathering additional feedback from the community to further refine this initiative. Maintaining an open dialogue ensures a broad range of perspectives are incorporated, reinforcing the long-term resilience and adaptability of the Aave ecosystem.
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This response is becoming increasingly confusing. When you’re ready to share what Horizon is, please come back with a proposal. Without sufficient information, it’s impossible to take a stance. I still believe there is absolutely no chance of allowing a third-party candidate to benefit from RWA on AAVE while simultaneously issuing a new token. It’s a no-go.
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Few thoughts after considering Aave Labs first response to feedback and other DAO members feedback.
- Horizon as proposed, is an independent licensed protocol from Aave, with independent value accrual to Horizon protocol. Aave DAO will not govern Horizon protocol.
- Horizon relies heavily on Aave infrastructure at all levels of implementation including the entire code base and using GHO as a core borrowable asset.
2a. Both products and all of the underlying assets are made by the same team (Aave Labs) funded by Aave DAO. Does this relationship not make Aave and Horizon legally linked? - Horizon protocol as proposed, WILL have a token, not “potentially”. Otherwise Horizon would not be an independent protocol with independent value accrual.
I ask Aave Labs to please explain why Horizon protocol needs separate value accrual if not to issue a new token to then accrue value to? Seems obvious a new Horizon token will be introduced eventually.
A new token could be required, it could work, but being opaque about if a token will be issued, and having measly revenue/token share with Aave is a non starter.
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Developers will never look at coin buyers the way they look at VCs. It doesn’t matter how much value our money adds to a system, how much risk we take when investing (and in AAVE’s case staking with 30% and 99% slashes), we are not the end goal buyers. We’re used to bootstrap the developers ideas with our money, but are pushed aside when the end goal (institutional money) approaches.
2% airdrop to AAVE stakers? The ones who have been carrying the slashing risk for years? That’s insulting. So is 10% to the DAO. I’m not exit liquidity. I vote no.
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The response is confusing for me as well @ApuMallku
Now for me it sounds like Horizon is intentended to be kind of a new protocol and fork with its own token but its actually not a fork because its a separate market but using 100% of unchanged Aave v3 codebase.
Especially this part basically highlights the intention.
Aave will be the token for Aave and the DAO can do whatever it wants, but Horizon shall have its own token, be governed by Avara and used to pay for integrations like Morpho did to get the Coinbase deal.
Although im very optimistic that Umbrella, as soons as it grows big enough, will attract institutional money itself because they will see that there is a (hopefully) billion dollar cushion protecting their assets.
I have absolutely no problem with Horizon being fully controlled by Avara if thats needed for legal & compliant reasons and also if Avara would get 80% of all fees lifetime.
If the RWA market is going to grow that fast, this would result in heavy revenue, probably way bigger than the funding rounds for v3 or v4. This would give Avara the option to fully operate without the need to ask for funding from the DAO in the future. And also giving full control of those funds for other Avara ventures. Right now the DAO is not able to control if those funds are only used for Aave.
Ultimately this should be either a fork and fully disconnected from Aave and the DAO, which would be the worst outcome, giving the strong brand and security people connect with Aave.
Or a simple market, dedicated for RWA & institutional money, controlled by Avara, getting 80% of fees and thats it.
Introducing a new token means AAVE vs. Horizon and betting on which product/market will attract more TVL in the future and thus revenue. Yes, the Aave DAO and token would profit from extra revenue and as well stronger buy-backs, but in the end it would be a competitor, that has no protection from Umbrella, no incentives from Merit/MASIv or any other benefits the Aave protocol and its enduser are enjoying right now.
And lastly I want to highlight comments many people made in this post.
Aave is so successfull because of its community (which you cannot fork), because of people buying the token and that way basically making it possible for Avara exploring other ventures. If Aave & Horizon would fail in the future, there would be a huge loss in Avara’s ventures portfolio, as Aave is probably currently the only very strong revenue generating protocol. No revenue would mean no funding possible for Aavechain, audits, Service provider keeping the DAO alive or incentives to fight competition.
Thats why I strongly advise to think about the potential consequences and alternative solutions to make Aave even stronger and Horizon a great RWA instance.
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I would like to understand this statement further. How is the same product under existing AAVE fails and might work very well under a new different organization?
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What is the proposed breakdown for the remaining 85% ?
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Initially, I was opposed to this proposal and did not want to add tension to the legitimate concerns raised by token holders. However, it is now clear that this issue has sparked growing concern, not only among delegates and active holders but also among previously passive token holders who are now engaging in this discussion.
The response from @AaveLabs does not adequately address these concerns. Having Aave in your name doesn’t automatically mean being aligned with Aave DAO. I hope @AaveLabs will prioritize the interests of the Aave DAO over those of the Avara Family and foster greater collaboration with other service providers. Decision-making in isolation leads to misalignment and ineffective solutions
Aave DAO has already demonstrated, with Merit, its ability to mobilize substantial budgets when there is a genuine long-term benefit. In my view, issuing a new token is not the right approach, especially with such an arbitrary distribution and in a context of price drop.
Unless this proposal undergoes drastic revisions, I will vote against it
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I can not get over how gross and greedy this proposal is, and I echo the sentiment stated by 99% of the community members in this post once again. This is nothing but a greedy money grab by the team. Do they not have a big enough stake in Aave so they have to pivot to another money grab?? I really did think that Stani was one of the good guys and this is disheartening. Just ship this with Aave V4 in one package? Why do we need a separate token. What was their response too, I felt like they’re just going to push their way forward with this considering the legal jargon of that response. And then you can tell that the bots / Aave swooped in right after to change the sentiment.
Such a joke. If we can’t stand up to this blatant BS I’m out. @MarcZeller please save us
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Long term lurker here, i feel like it’s a good time to share my take
I don’t see how can it be that hard to understand what’s going on with this proposal especially after the latest message by Aave labs but i’ll try to break down the way i see it. What they are saying here imo is:
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RWAs are a big business with many things going on (which is true, you have tokenization, facilitation, creation of new tradfi products that can then be tokenized, all of these inherently centralized - of which lending is only a small part) and don’t fit under a DAO (understandable, you need someone who takes responsibility and takes on compliance and regulation, i don’t see how it would work under a DAO without a real entity taking on it plus again, the inherent centralization)
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We tried to make it work under the DAO with arc, and failed miserably cause institutions didn’t give a rat’s ass (again understandable, i don’t see any serious institution wanting to deal with a bunch of defi nerds)
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We need a good way to lobby and incentivize usage and the AAVE token aint it (reasonable, there aren’t many AAVE left in the treasury and having to ask the DAO every single time especially with figures like Zeller in the middle i can imagine would be a nightmare)
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Ergo we take on the legal burden, we create the infrastructure to facilitate the adoption, and use a new token to lobby and provide incentives, while returning revenue back to the DAO in form of direct revenue share and GHO growth.
The idea doesn’t sound half bad to me, Aave is pretty much non existent in the RWA sector and even competitors like morpho are farther away in adoption than us. Without even mentioning ONDO which with a crappy compound fork managed to make circles around us and get far away just by bizdev deals and lobbying. Instead of crying about VCs and money grab shenanigans you should wonder why at the table with Trump on the strategic reserve and in all the major talks with big boys there are ONDO representatives and not your beloved Marc Zeller.
I think if done properly this has much more potential to bring consistent revenue to the Aave DAO than releasing an half assed Arc 2.0 with no clear strategy around who does what, no legal structure and no incentives.
Sure the proposed token allocation and rev share sucks ass (maybe also fault of the friendly fork framework? seriously who the hell vote that thing? such a joke) but i feel that with a 25% token allocation and 50% perpetual revshare it would be a pretty good deal for the DAO; you get a clear path forward for RWAs, perpetual revenue flow, boost in GHO adoption (which is the biggest revenue generator) and zero legal risk.
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Aave Labs should focus bring more practical use case to the Aave token instead of making another token which 85% of it is basically in the hand of VCs anyone who knows Aave Team and Stani him self would be pretty interested if Aave adopt RWA but hey if that comes with distributing the absolute majority of new Token to VCs which honestly lead to just destroying the Aave token in terms of demand i don’t think it’s worth it.
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This proposal would be less contested if it were coming from anyone but AAVE Labs. This contains clear conflicts of interests when using a code base AAVE DAO paid for to build a new product, and also stating
What does this even mean? Horizon is a fork of AAVE but exists outside of the ecosystem? I am astonished this even come from the labs team who have been doing great developments in the past few years.
A new token is absolutely unnecessary and this requirement should be clearly stated.
Fully agree with the further adoption of GHO but that only really matters when GHO is driving the majority of revenue for AAVE DAO. This is not the case now. Taking away institutional adoption for a new entity with the outrageous revenue share plan is just ridiculous.
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As the Founder of Aave Labs, someone who gave inception for the project, and been relentlessly working on Aave and ETHLend since 2017 without a break, I find this proposal and discussion extremely important for the DAO to discuss and which potential should not be overlooked.
I want to first address the main important axiom, that few DAO members here already pointed out: the Aave DAO is currently lacking RWA-related revenue and is behind on RWAs.
Primary reason why RWAs have been overlooked as a revenue source by the Aave DAO is because as a decentralized DAO it would not be able to directly comply with legal, compliance and regulatory requirements of RWAs. This means someone as a centralized business needs to do this work. Secondly, there are service providers and also DAO members who have lack of conviction on RWAs but I would assume this mindset changes the more the RWA space keeps growing and Aave keeps loosing its positioning.
Aave Arc itself wasn’t fully focused on RWAs, it was a simply more permissioned version of Aave for institutional users. However, the experimentation did provide some good learnings for us and even with Aave Arc, our team had to do most of the offchain leg work on legal and compliance to make the market comply with the institutional requirements, in the current structure that the DAO is setup, this would not be possible to do by the DAO even today, neither it should in my opinion as it would centralize the DAO.
There are some confusions around what Horizon is, Horizon is not a protocol, its purely a centralized business with offchain and onchain components that is setup to grow RWAs and institutional adoption for DeFi. What this means in practice is that Horizon is creating centralized services to support RWAs and bringing them into DeFi. Its a business model that does not compete or exist in the Aave ecosystem, and will never exist because this is a centralized service business that the DAO itself cannot do technically and legally speaking, and thus is outside of the physical scope of the Aave DAO.
Given the nature of Horizon’s first product, using a lending and borrowing protocol would benefit its use-case. This is the reason Horizon is looking to acquire license for Aave V3 to accelerate the growth of the first product and in return ensuring that:
- There are no cost for the Aave DAO.
- Create new revenue stream that the DAO is missing now.
- Gives Aave DAO skin in the game in the most cryptonative way (as a token, given Aave DAO cannot hold equity).
- Does not dilute the AAVE token because Horizon business is something that the Aave DAO cannot do given the centralization aspects and the leg work needed on Horizon’s services and requirements that are purely offchain.
- Given the technical setup of the instance, even if the risk configuration is overseen by Horizon mainly in terms of asset listings and risk parameters, the actual operational configuration would be under the Aave DAO and the TVL would be listed under the Aave DAO, to be as “close to the metal” as possible given the regulatory and centralization constraints.
In overall this proposal simply creates the flywheel where as Horizon grows, Aave grows and earns more revenue. My bet is that in 5 years the revenue from Horizon would supersede the existing revenue from the all the existing Aave markets combined.
The most important part for us has been that the Aave DAO should not need to pay anything. Some DAO members comments propose to asking for a grant from the DAO in form of AAVE or GHO/USDC. However, we consider that given Horizon’s business model contains high failure risk as well, it would not be fair for the Aave DAO to pay for funding the initiative. We rather focus on boostrapping on our own and focusing on providing revenue for the DAO that is currently missing.
We also want to encourage all other service providers that have RWA product ideas to step up and propose to the DAO in cases where they are looking to acquire a license through the Friendly Fork Framework. At this point there should be multiple RWA businesses using Aave stack where its applicable. Today the number is 0, which means loss of revenue for the Aave DAO and a failure from growth perspective to position Aave as the frontrunner on RWAs in the DeFi space. Compared to other service providers we have a constructive attitude towards RWA businesses and support anyone who provides more revenue from RWAs into Aave DAO.
Horizon also followed the Friendly Fork Framework as a basis. Similarly to World Liberty Finance (a team which has a token) and naturally doubled the token portion to boost Aave DAO’s exposure.
Now what comes to the token, Horizon not having a token (which of course is Horizon’s decision and a possible path) creates couple of set backs that are worth addressing. First, the RWA businesses that Horizon creates would grow slower and the revenue to the Aave DAO from the Horizon instance would grow slower and would be much more limited. Second, it would leave out the option for the Aave DAO to have skin in Horizon given ERC-20s are what the DAO can hold, it cannot physically hold anything else technically or legally speaking.
Now what is really important to settle is the numbers itself for the DAO to be comfortable to see the initiative to move forward and unlock the revenue streams to the DAO. As mentioned before, the basis was the Friendly Fork Framework created by ACI (and voted by the DAO), if that Framework is not appealing (I personally think this framework was rushed and not properly peer-reviewed), we are open to find more suitable grounds. Secondly, Horizon’s products that could use Aave’s technology would be around 10%, this is because Aave provides mainly lending and borrowing infrastructure. Nevertheless, we are thinking additional ideas on how to use the Aave Protocol and GHO for centralized RWA businesses.
This discussion is really important given how big revenue opportunity Horizon and especially GHO can be in the RWA space. Currently GHO brings 10x more revenue than supply based stablecoins in Aave Protocol. Being able to utilize GHO for institutional products would scale the revenue beyond anything seen before.
One of the Aave Labs absolute commitment on everything we do is to grow GHO because the existing revenue model design of GHO brings 100% of the revenue back to the Aave DAO, independently where the revenue generated. This is the same reason we are integrating GHO as a gas token into Lens Chain.
I hope this clarifies what was already explained by the official Aave Labs account and we will make our best effort to reduce the doubt that the community might have.
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The Horizon initiative clearly taps into a huge opportunity with institutional RWAs. However, introducing a new token alongside AAVE raises concerns about alignment.
This raises a critical concern: If Horizon becomes highly successful, will Aave Labs maintain its commitment to Aave DAO?
There’s a risk that incentives could shift, unintentionally causing Aave Labs to prioritize Horizon over the core AAVE ecosystem, potentially weakening community alignment and neglecting the core AAVE development.
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I understand the need for centralization due to legal requirements, hence the idea of doing a ‘friendly fork’ or an instance—call it what you will—with a company controlling Horizon behind the scenes.
Here’s the solution : the only way to make your proposal work is to distribute the revenues to the Aave DAO, and far more than what’s currently suggested!
Because if I’m understanding this right, it’s the same product, where you’ll have control (due to legal demands), loosely linked to Aave, but it’s still Aave at its core, just with a focus on RWAs.
From what I can see at a glance in terms of expenses: minimal development, some business development, and a legal work… In other words, your suggestion about the profit-sharing sounds like a gentle joke, and the token distribution does too.
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