Aave brand dispute rumbles on as founder buys £22M London property
As 2025 drew to a close, a heated governance debate raged in the Aave community.
And while the DAO vs Labs furore has died down over the last month, it hasn’t gone away entirely. Indeed, the camps remain at odds over perceived stagnation on how to resolve the underlying brand ownership issue.
Specifically, debate centered on concerns about the potential for Labs’ unilateral monetization of the Aave brand. With hindsight, today’s news doesn’t exactly help Labs’ image.
In November, presumably blissfully unaware of the drama about to unfold, Aave founder Stani Kulechov had no doubts about who owned the luxury £22 million ($30 million), five-storey Notting Hill mansion he’d just purchased.
Read more: Aave Labs v DAO: Who controls the money — and the brand?
Labs vs DAO: a recap
Lending platform Aave is the DeFi sector’s largest protocol. Its total value locked currently totals around $30 billion, over 25% of that of the entire sector.
What began as a debate over fees from a swap integration quickly evolved into an existential question over the very ownership of the Aave brand.
A “disgraceful” vote, unilaterally scheduled by Aave Labs over the Christmas period, resulted in 55% of votes against transferring ownership of brand assets to the DAO. Over 40% of votes abstained.
Shortly after the vote, Kulechov posted a lengthy manifesto entitled How AAVE will win, in which he envisions consumer-grade products driving growth, to the benefit of both Labs and the DAO.
He also noted that success “requires a new level of professionalism from the Aave community and its contributors.”
Dragging feet
While some took Kulechov’s statement as an olive branch, tensions have continued to build.
As forum members began to ask for updates, they were simply told “a proposal is being worked on.” However, key delegates have confirmed that they’ve not been involved in the development of such a proposal.
Additionally, another forum member asked about the deal made with Trump family-linked World Liberty Financial. The firm has so far neglected to launch an Aave “instance,” voted for a year ago, using Dolomite to offer lending instead.
More recently, over on X, an Aave DAO delegate going by “Ignas” drew attention to the $5 million earned from the controversial CoW Swap integration in its first six months of operation.
The post claims these “$5 million in fees quietly changed hands,” however, Kulechov insists the fees are “outside of the Aave Protocol.”
A proposed reinvestment module in Aave’s upcoming Labs-developed v4 also raised eyebrows.
Aave founder diversifies with real-world assets
Commenting on the November purchase, Zeller, who has been one of the strongest critics of Aave Labs’ approach to the ownership debate, nonetheless said Kulechov “has every right to be rich,” adding, “That money wasn’t stolen, it was earned.”
He also warned against “doxxing,” especially in an “era of crypto kidnappings.”
Kulechov made sure to use the attention to plug the Aave Labs-developed app.
Read more: Is Aave’s ‘Balance Protection’ backed by Relm — an FTX insurer?
There’s no question that the Aave brand is a serious moneymaker. The underlying protocol has generated almost $9 million in revenue over the past 30 days.
Additionally, the trust placed in the familiar Aave brand allows Labs’ products to monetize, for example, via front-end swap fees or charging fees to app users.
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