💥 Aave DAO vs Aave Labs: dispute over $10 million

A conflict has erupted between the Aave community (DAO) and the developers of Aave Labs over changes to the main site of the protocol. Previously, through an integration with ParaSwap, the DAO received referral fees—around $200,000 a week, which is estimated to be about $10 million over a year.

The recent integration of CoW Swap by Aave Labs has disabled ParaSwap. DAO members consider this a unilateral decision that "redirects income from the community to the company." Mars Zeller from the Aave Chan initiative called this move "stealth privatization" and expressed concerns about the future V4 update.

In response, Stani Kulechov, head of Aave Labs, explained: ParaSwap provided a "discretionary surplus," and the website interface is a private product of the company. The main goal of the CoW Swap integration is better prices for users and protection against MEV, not income for Labs.

⚡ The question remains open: how will income be distributed and protocol updates managed in the future?