A revenue- Chia dispute has erupted between the AAVE project management community and the main development company, AAVE Labs.
The conflict stems from AAVE Labs' recent decision to integrate CoW Swap as the primary transaction infrastructure on the AAVE website. This change replaced ParaSwap, the service that previously generated referral fees for the AAVE DAO treasury.
DAO members questioned the economic impact following the interface update.
Management representatives stated that this change resulted in a loss of approximately $200,000 in revenue per week. Calculated annually, this loss is estimated at around $10 million, pulling the Token 's value out of the hands of retail investors.
Marc Zeller, founder of the AAVE Chan Initiative, criticized the decision, calling it a move to “quietly privatize” brand assets.
Zeller alleges that AAVE Labs unilaterally altered the economic agreement without consulting the DAO, the entity responsible for managing the core smart contracts.
“AAVE Labs, aiming to profit for itself, has diverted AAVE users’ transaction flow to a competitor platform. This is unacceptable. By this integration, AAVE has lost two revenue streams that are unlikely to be recouped,” he wrote.
Zeller warned that this lack of transparency is causing concern about how future upgrades will be implemented.
He also highlighted the upcoming V4 upgrade and questioned whether other secondary features might also be "isolated" from the DAO.
“We need to look at the whole picture to determine whether AAVE Labs violated its fiduciary obligations to the AAVE DAO and AAVE Token holder , and what we should expect from V4 in the future,” Zeller concluded.
AAVE Labs speaks out in defense of its decisions.
In a detailed response , Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of AAVE Labs , defended the integration decision and denied that the lost revenue was stolen.
Kulechov argues that the previous fees from ParaSwap were merely "voluntary excess revenue," not mandatory fees from the protocol.
"It was never a fixed fee; it was just surplus funds that we donated to the DAO," he emphasized.
He also emphasized the clear distinction between the AAVE protocol – the decentralized smart contracts managed by the DAO – and the website interface. According to him, this interface is a private product developed and maintained by AAVE Labs.
Kulechov stated that AAVE Labs was responsible for the technical and security costs of the website. He also said that the DAO did not financially support the ongoing product development costs.
Therefore, the company believes that generating revenue from the interface is a logical step to ensure the long-term sustainability of the service.
"It's perfectly normal for AAVE Labs to profit from its product, especially since it doesn't affect the protocol's structure," he added.
The development company also reiterated Kulechov's position, while admitting that it had not provided sufficient information about the recent change.
The company stated that its switch to CoW Swap was aimed at providing better transaction rates and protecting users against MEV (maximum extractable value), not at increasing revenue.
