Aave Founder Responds to Governance Tensions with Strategic Plan – Details
Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov responded to recent management tensions within the Aave ecosystem, outlining a strategy to address operational management issues and accelerate long-term growth. The controversy followed the DAO’s vote on whether the community should fully control the protocol’s product and core assets. The proposal was overwhelmingly rejected—with 55% voting against, 41% rejecting, and 3.5% upvoting—highlighting ongoing questions about value capture and alignment between Aave Labs and token holders.
Time to Scale Beyond Crypto – Aave CEO
In a post on Friday, Kulechov framed the current period as a cross for Aave, stressing that the growth of the protocol cannot be limited to its current crypto-native lending products. He sees significant growth potential in the real-world assets (RWAs) and institutional markets, predicting that Aave could eventually support a $500 trillion asset base and tens of millions of users with the Aave app.
Kulechov says:
Today, most of Aave’s lending is focused on ETH, BTC, or crypto-driven lock-in strategies related to crypto market cycles. When I started Aave (initially as ETHLend) in 2017, the vision was to use smart contracts to enable lending across almost all asset classes and use cases.
A key feature of this strategy is the upcoming Aave V4, a modular architecture designed to integrate new lending models and asset classes securely. The design allows for innovation without compromising protocol integrity, enabling both crypto-native and RWA use cases while creating a developer-friendly environment to encourage innovation.
Consumer Products, Revenue, and Alignment
Addressing operational concerns, Kulechov stressed that consumer-grade general products needed by millions of users should be developed by independent, independent teams over the permissionless Aave Protocol rather than directly sponsored or controlled by the DAO. This approach ensures faster performance while allowing the protocol to benefit from increased usage and revenue.
Kulechov says:
World-class consumer products are built by like-minded teams with the autonomy to move fast. Although distributional governance works well in hierarchical economies, it is not appropriate for product-level decision-making.
Kulechov also promised to share revenues earned outside of the protocol with token holders and confirmed that future proposals will include clear tokenization and alignment paths. In his concluding remarksKulechov reiterated his belief in Aave’s potential while also urging cooperation to drive the protocol and the success of its native token.
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