#AAVE 📉 End of an era: Chaos Labs leaves Aave amid investigation of other key developers
The largest DeFi lending protocol Aave is going through a serious governance crisis. Chaos Labs, which for 3 years was responsible for assessing the risks of each loan on the platform, has officially announced the start of cooperation.
This is the third major loss for Aave in recent times: key contributors BGD Labs and ACI (Aave Chan Initiative) previously announced their departure.
🔍 Why is Chaos Labs leaving?
Founder Omer Goldberg named three main reasons:
1. Financial gap: Chaos Labs has been operating at a loss for the last 3 years. A request for a budget of $ 8 million (to cover V3 and the new V4) was met with an offer of only $ 5 million from Aave Labs.
2. Aave V4 risks: The launch of the fourth version of the protocol supports downloads. It is necessary to maintain the old V3 infrastructure while building security from scratch for the untested V4 code.
3. Governance conflict: Deep disagreement with Aave Labs over risk management priorities. Goldberg emphasized that money is not the only problem: “It’s not something that can be fixed by just increasing the budget.”
🏛️ What’s happening inside Aave?
There is a secondary problem in the ecosystem due to centralization. Recently, Aave Labs (a commercial entity) unilaterally redirected a portion of the DAO’s revenue to a corporate wallet, which outraged the community. Although founder Stani Kuleshov proposed an “Aave Will Win” plan to turn the company into a division of the DAO, the top developers still plan to leave.
⚠️ What does this mean for users?
• Security risks: Aave loses the “last technical contributor” who knew the middle system. The transition to V4 is taking place in conditions of staff shortage.
• Transformation: Aave is trying to enter the retail market through a new application with a return of up to 9%, but it does so at the cost of proven partners lost over the years.