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Aave DAO has approved the first binding “Aave Will Win” proposal, giving Aave Labs $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE vesting over four years. The vote passed with roughly 75% support, formalizing a new arrangement where revenue from Aave-branded products goes back to the DAO treasury. This gives Aave Labs more resources to move faster, but it also sharpens debate around concentration of control inside one of DeFi’s biggest protocols.

Aave DAO funds Labs and takes product revenue

As it happens, the approved package includes $5 million upfront, another $5 million streamed over six months, $15 million streamed over 12 months, and 75,000 AAVE vested over 48 months.

In return, Aave Labs says 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products such as Aave App, Aave Pro, Aave Card, Aave Kit, and Aave Horizon will flow to the DAO treasury.

This way, Aave is changing how people should think about the setup. Instead of Aave Labs funding itself through product revenue while the DAO governs the protocol, the DAO is now directly funding the team and taking the revenue. It’s a cleaner alignment model on paper, and a more founder-led operating model in practice.

Against this backdrop, the AAVE token is currently trading at the price of $93.70, having advanced 3.7% in the last 24 hours, reducing to 3.9% the loss accumulated over the past seven days and to 14.9% the dip over the month, according to the latest charts.

The real signal is speed over decentralization optics

Supporters see the vote as pragmatic. Aave Labs is taking on a wider mandate, including product expansion, protocol work, and functions previously handled by other service providers. 

The argument is this: if Aave wants to compete with fintechs and other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, it needs a team that can execute without getting stuck in endless governance loops.

Critics are arguing about the structure. Opposition centered on whether too much of Aave’s stack is being concentrated under one team, and whether the DAO is drifting away from a multi-provider model toward something closer to a venture studio wrapped in governance.

That is the bigger takeaway from this vote. Aave just approved a grant, as well as signaled that for now, it would rather move faster with tighter control than preserve a cleaner decentralization story.