Aave Labs proposes to transfer 100% of protocol revenue to the DAO in exchange for operational funding.

Techub News reported, according to The Block, Aave Labs has published a proposal to transfer 100% of the revenue from all Aave-branded products to the Aave DAO treasury in exchange for operational funding. Specifically, Aave Labs plans to direct all revenue from Aave-branded products—including swap fees from Aave v3 and the upcoming v4 protocol, earnings from the aave.com frontend, and other future business lines like the Aave Card and AAVE ETF—entirely into the Aave DAO treasury. It also proposes establishing a new Aave Foundation to hold the Aave trademark and intellectual property. In exchange, it requests the DAO to commit $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE to cover operational expenses, along with applying for five grants of $3 million each for the development and marketing of Aave App, Aave Pro, and Aave Card, plus $2.5 million for Aave Kit. Aave Labs stated that the v4 architecture will enable revenue models difficult to achieve in previous versions, with plans to gradually adjust v3 parameters 8-12 months after v4's launch to guide migration. The proposal also requests the DAO to coordinate v4 development with Labs and to pause new feature development for v3.

Aave Chan Initiative founder Marc Zeller expressed opposition to this. Zeller called it a "cash grab disguised as goodwill," alleging that Labs is using an aggressive proposal as a bargaining chip, "trying to impose an outcome regardless of the governance process." He estimated Labs' actual funding request to be around $50 million and questioned its governance legitimacy.