Aave’s decentralized governance body has officially approved the “Aave Will Win” (AWW) proposal, a move that consolidates the protocol’s economic rights under the AAVE token. The decision marks the conclusion of a bitter, months-long dispute between the community and Aave Labs over the control of revenue generated by the platform’s interface.
Under the new framework, 100% of revenue from all Aave-branded products will flow directly to the DAO treasury. This includes income from the Aave App, Aave Pro, and various software integrations like the Aave Kit. Previously, these fees had been diverted, leading to skepticism among governance participants.
A Shift in Economic Power
The tension surfaced in December 2025, when delegates noticed that swap fees from the CoWSwap integration were being redirected away from the community treasury to an external party. That discovery prompted a wider debate regarding whether the protocol’s developers or its token holders ultimately own the revenue generated by user-facing applications.
With the passage of the AWW proposal, the DAO now assumes responsibility for funding Aave Labs’ operational costs. To facilitate this transition, the community approved a $25 million stablecoin grant alongside an allocation of 5,000 AAVE tokens, valued at approximately $6.8 million, for the development team.
Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, described the vote as the most significant event in the protocol's history. By aligning the interests of the token holders with the application layer, the protocol aims to accelerate its growth toward a stated target of $1 trillion in network value.
Protocol revenue reached $140 million in 2025, and the project is currently on track to mirror that performance in 2026. The inclusion of application-layer revenue from platforms like Aave Pro is expected to add between $10 million and $20 million in annual income on top of existing protocol fees.
The vote effectively strips Aave Labs of its unilateral control over the protocol’s commercial output. By centralizing economic rights, the DAO has signaled a shift toward a more transparent, token-centric model where the community dictates the financial trajectory of the Aave ecosystem.
