Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

Abstract

On April 12, 2026, the Aave DAO approved the binding terms of founder Stani Kulechov’s “Aave Must Win” framework, approving a $25 million stablecoin grant and an allocation of 75,000 AAVE (worth approximately $6.8 million) tokens to development company Aave Labs. Funds will begin flowing into addresses controlled by Aave Labs after Monday afternoon.

1. Aave DAO voting review

According to data from the Aave governance dashboard, this funding application was created at 12:28 am on April 9, 2026, voting began at 12:42 am on April 10, and the funding application plan was voted on at 12:42 am on April 13.

The Aave improvement proposal ended with 522,780 votes in favor and 175,310 votes against. The approval rating of about 75% was a significant improvement from the controversial interim plan in early March, which received only 52.58% support, with critics accusing the vote of being influenced by addresses associated with Aave Labs.

The Aave DAO funds Aave Labs through various grants - totaling $25 million in stablecoins, in addition to an allocation of 75,000 AAVE tokens that will unlock linearly over four years.

The details are as follows:

• Allocate 5 million aEthLidoGHO from the Collector contract (protocol income pool);

• Allocate 5 million aEthLidoGHO from the Collector contract (protocol income pool) and release it in 6 months;

• 15 million aEthLidoGHO will be allocated from the Collector contract (protocol income pool) and released in 12 months;

• 75,000 AAVE will be allocated from the ecosystem reserve and released in 48 months.

At the end of the 12-month period, any unused portion of the major appropriation shall be returned to the DAO Finance Department or otherwise disposed of through a subsequently approved budget decision by the DAO.

Per the AIP text, growth and development grants, including milestone payments related to the launch of Aave App, Aave Pro, Aave Card and Aave Kit (these payments were outlined in the original framework), will be processed through separate governance proposals.

The "Aave Must Win" framework was first proposed in January this year as AAVE founder Stani Kulechov's response to the months-long dispute between Aave Labs and DAO contributors over revenue sharing, brand ownership and governance rights. Under this framework, revenue from all Aave-branded products (including aave.com trading platform, Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon and Aave Kit) will flow into the DAO vault, and in exchange, the DAO will fund Aave Labs’ product development.

2. Aave’s future planning

Stani Kulechov posted that the most important proposal in Aave’s history, “Aave Must Win,” was passed overwhelmingly.

The following is Aave’s overall plan for the future:

General direction

- Aave will be entirely token-centric: one asset, one model: $AAVE

- To date, Aave DAO has accumulated AIP-1 protocol revenue: $140 million in 2025, and is on track to reach this goal in 2026 despite market downturns limited to protocol revenue.

- The AWW proposal introduces a new revenue stream: application and product revenue generated outside of the Aave protocol is now distributed to the DAO as additional revenue.

- This covers Aave Pro, http://Aave.com, Aave App, Horizon (RWA) and Aave Kit, all of which revenue will flow back into the DAO vault.

- Token swaps on Aave.com and Aave Pro have generated $10 million to $20 million in new revenue on top of existing protocol revenue.

- Aave V4’s reinvestment feature ensures that the float in the pool generates returns, creating an additional revenue stream similar to how Aave V4 Spokes work with new revenue opportunities.

- AWW gives Aave access to the complete vertical industry technology stack. In a competitive environment where protocols are increasingly commoditized, having this technology stack becomes increasingly important.

- AWW has also established a community-protected mechanism to independently manage Aave’s brand assets and intellectual property on behalf of token holders.

- Aave Labs is committed to focusing on the development of Aave-related products and fully locking in these assets.

- If you hold $AAVE, you own not only a financial interest in the protocol, but also the brand, users, and integrations.

In other words: everything belongs to the same asset, the $AAVE token.

- We believe that tokens are the best opportunity of our time to build collective governance protocols, but a unified vision is critical for execution.

- 这一愿景由 Aave Labs 提供，他们将与所有 Aave 服务提供商携手合作，将 Aave 从 400 亿美元的协议发展到 1 万亿美元甚至更高。

Product layer and distribution

- The Aave App will attract millions of users with a simple and easy-to-use fintech experience, while ensuring users have complete control over their funds, with each user enjoying $1 million in account protection. There will also be a card coming later that will bring additional costs to Aave's coffers.

- Aave Pro will become the platform of choice for advanced users: powerful, easy to get started, and the best experience in DeFi.

- Aave Labs has the industry's top designers and design engineers, committed to providing every user with a high-quality experience.

- Aave Kit will provide SOC2-compliant, enterprise-grade integration for fintech companies and partners.

- Horizon will expand its support for Aave V4 and provide a more flexible way to list assets to expand risk-weighted assets (RWA) on Aave.

- The new Aave V4 Spokes will unlock more collateral and meet DeFi liquidity needs.

- These products are designed to make DeFi accessible to everyone and position Aave as the foundational credit and repo market for over $400 trillion worth of traditional financial assets.

Engineering and Technology

- Aave Labs has the best engineers in the DeFi field. We've built V1 through V3, GHO, and most recently V4, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of our future build plans.

- Aave V4 paves the way for the next generation of lending, and Aave V3 will continue to be fully supported and maintained by Aave Labs for years to come.

- We always put safety first. Smart contract security, application security and ICT security cannot be compromised, and our recent SOC2 compliance certification reflects this. Institutions expect this, and we consistently meet these needs.

- We will invest in agent artificial intelligence to open up new opportunities for developers building with Aave.

Marketing

- Aave has long been a leader in the cryptocurrency space with brand, events, content and partner marketing. We will redouble our efforts to build on our brand awareness and the strong foundation we have established.

- Going forward, we will expand into new audiences and channels to make Aave mainstream and build a new, more sticky user base among new DeFi users.

Growth

- Aave will deepen its relationship with all parts of the DeFi ecosystem and establish new connections with fintech companies, banks and asset managers.

- Aave is not a bank at its core. This is a financial network that any fintech, bank or asset management company can plug into, and providing the best integration tools is critical.

Business development efforts will rely on close collaboration between service providers such as Token Logic and our partner network.

- We value our long-term relationships and commitments with our partners, including with @chainlink.

- We recognize the values Aave currently represents and expect our partners to treat us with the same respect.

Governance

- We support Aave's multi-contributor model and will continue to implement it.

- We will oppose any vendor lock-in or service provider that develops products at the expense of token holders.

- We require full transparency from our service providers and will not tolerate relationship barriers of any kind, as all value must flow to Aave.

- Zero value loss: All products developed using Aave funds must benefit Aave and be owned by Aave.

- Service Providers (SPs) that adhere to these principles and are committed to the best interests of token holders will receive our support in terms of budget, provided the budget is reasonable.

- The DAO takes a zero-bureaucracy approach: execution and stakes are key. We're competing against some of the most efficient and well-funded organizations in the world, so there's absolutely no room for friction.

- Each Service Provider (SP) will have tangible and measurable goals. The payment mechanism for submitting governance proposals has been discontinued. We have consolidated service providers to pool resources.

- In the coming months, we will be making improvements to our governance process: more efficient and less political.

Risk Management

- We will continue to support a multi-layered risk management process that includes an economic risk layer and a technical risk assessment layer, executed by Aave Labs.

- Aave’s risk management will include external risk management agencies such as Llama Risk and Token Logic for business and economic assessments. Aave Labs will also establish a standing internal risk management function to coordinate and support external risk managers to enhance the resilience of the entire system.

Building a regulatory moat

- Aave Labs has spent years building a regulatory moat around Aave's products and deepening vertical integration.

- Aave is one of the few DeFi ecosystems operating at scale with regulated entities, including MiCA-authorized CASP (Irish Virtual Asset Service Provider) Push Virtual Assets Ireland, and an entity licensed by the UK's EMI (Electronic Money Institution).

- We are actively applying for more licenses globally to achieve a seamless 1:1 fiat-to-Aave exchange for mainstream users, which is a prerequisite for large-scale popularization.

- We challenge high standards.

Policy

- Aave Labs’ policy team is world-class. We have been involved in every major policy consultation over the years and will continue to fight for DeFi, protecting it from harmful regulation and ensuring legal certainty for users and integrators.

- The next few years will be crucial for DeFi policy. We go all out

Our principles

- Safety comes first and cannot be compromised.

Everything we build is truly DeFi, with self-hosted access at its core.

- Driven by innovation, we will drive the development of the DeFi field by innovating and building new things.

- In order to achieve the scale of DeFi, we need new user groups. This means we need to expand DeFi’s market share by building a better user experience and infrastructure.

- Friendly by default: Anyone can work with Aave as long as conditions permit.

- Build and operate with transparency. We will conduct all our work openly and transparently with the highest standards of accountability.

This is the direction we are committed to and a multi-year journey. The foundation has been laid, now it’s time to show off.

Aave will succeed.

3. What impact will Aave’s “must-win” framework bring?

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, after this proposal is passed, Aave DAO will release 25 million US dollars in stable coins and 75,000 AAVE (worth approximately 6.8 million US dollars) token distribution to the development team, which will directly change the market supply and demand of AAVE in the short term.

Although these funds will be linearly unlocked within four years and will not all enter the market in the short term, investors' concerns about future market supply cannot be ruled out. In addition, stablecoin allocation means that Aave Labs has sufficient working capital, which is often indirectly transformed into market selling pressure or hedging behavior.

But at the same time, the proposal itself brings about a new narrative. Expectations surrounding Aave V4, application layer expansion, and “full ecological revenue return to DAO” have improved market sentiment and supported prices. As of press time, AAVE was trading at $97.04, up 8.5%.

In the medium term, the most critical change brought by this framework to Aave is to make Aave a composite model of "full ecological revenue return to DAO". This means that Aave is moving towards the goal of moving from a DeFi protocol to a financial platform, and Aave is also expected to stand out from the DeFi track.

In the long term, execution rights are being concentrated in Aave Labs; core product and brand-related revenue will be uniformly returned to the DAO; and there will be a shift from decentralized collaboration to decentralized operations.

Under Stani Kulechov’s X post, followers expressed their opinions:

• This is a pretty strong statement: "If you own $AAVE, you not only own the financial rights to the protocol, but you also own the brand, users, and integrations."

• Once your funds are depleted again, you can force the DAO to agree to your terms again.

• It’s great to have a governance proposal receive an overwhelming vote, but that feeling disappears when you realize that the final decision really rests with just 12 wallets. Despite this, Aave still performs better than most wallets.

• Integrating brands, intellectual property, products and revenue into one token can greatly improve alliance consistency and value accumulation, but it also concentrates power at the coordination layer. The real question is whether the governance mechanism can effectively check and balance Aave Labs in the long term, or whether it will gradually evolve into soft centralization.

• This approach only works if the tokens purchased by the DAO are not used to pay service providers and are not sold on the market. Otherwise, the token price will not be affected in any way. This is especially true if the DAO’s payouts are determined by a handful of wallets.

From 2017 to 2026, Aave spent nearly ten years evolving from a failed P2P lending project to DeFi core infrastructure, and now it is trying to become a global financial platform. Whether to adhere to the ideal of decentralization or to prioritize efficiency and execution, Aave is giving its own answer.

Attachment: Aave development timeline

• In 2017, it was founded by Stani Kulechov in the name of ETHLend, focusing on peer-to-peer lending and borrowing.

• In January 2020, ETHLend officially changed its name to Aave ("ghost" in Finnish) and launched Aave V1. Transformed from P2P to a capital pool model and became one of the core players in the DeFi lending track.

• In December 2020, Aave V2 was launched. The upgrade content includes: collateral switching, debt tokenization, Gas optimization, etc. It marks the maturity of Aave products.

• In 2021, Aave Arc will be launched and deployed to Polygon and Avalanche. Aave begins to transform from "Ethereum protocol" to "multi-chain liquidity layer".

• In 2022, the over-collateralized stablecoin GHO will be launched.

• In 2023, GHO will gradually be launched and expanded, and the DAO income structure will begin to diversify. Aave begins to control "currency issuance rights."

• In 2022, Aave V3 will be gradually launched. The core functions include Portal (cross-chain liquidity), Isolation Mode (risk isolation), and eMode (efficient lending). Aave will become a cross-chain liquidity infrastructure.

• On March 30, 2026, Aave V4 was officially launched on the Ethereum mainnet, which is a major upgrade at the underlying architecture level in the DeFi field. Application layer products include: Aave App, Aave Pro, Aave Kit, Horizon (RWA). Aave transforms from "DeFi infrastructure" to "user-level financial product platform".

• On April 12, 2026, Aave DAO approved founder Stani Kulechov’s “Aave Must Win” framework. Provide funds to Aave Labs, and all ecological revenue will flow back to the DAO. Aave has completed the closed-loop design of its business model.