The post Aave DAO and Aave Labs members Clash Over $10 Million in Annual Revenue appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

A major conflict has emerged within Aave, the largest decentralized finance lending protocol, after community members discovered that millions in swap fees are flowing to Aave Labs instead of the protocol’s treasury. The dispute centers on a recent integration with CoW Swap that changed how revenue is distributed. The Revenue Diversion Discovered On December 11, 2025, a pseudonymous Aave DAO delegate named EzR3aL posted an open letter in the Aave governance forum questioning where swap fees were going. Through on-chain analysis, EzR3aL traced fees to a private address controlled by Aave Labs rather than the DAO treasury. The financial impact is significant. According to the analysis, the fee diversion amounts to approximately $200,000 per week, or roughly $10 million annually. This represents about 10% of the Aave DAO’s potential revenue, which community members argue belongs to token holders. Previously, Aave used ParaSwap for swap functionality. That arrangement sent surplus revenue to the DAO treasury without charging users explicit fees. The last weekly transfer was valued at 46 ETH, worth over $150,000 at the time. Source: governance.aave.com The new CoW Swap integration, which began rolling out in mid-2025 and was fully announced on December 4, 2025, charges users fees of 15-25 basis points on swaps. However, these fees now flow to Aave Labs instead of the community treasury. Key Players Take Sides Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative, called the situation “extremely concerning” and described it as “stealth privatization” of approximately 10% of the DAO’s potential revenue. Zeller argued that Aave Labs leveraged brand assets and intellectual property paid for by the DAO. “Aave Labs, in the pursuit of their own monetization, redirected Aave user volume towards competition. This is unacceptable,” Zeller wrote in the governance forum. He noted that engineers from the Aave Chan Initiative had contributed extensively…

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Filed under: News - @ December 14, 2025 9:08 pm