Aave DAO and Aave Labs are deeply divided over brand control and assets.

The Aave community has been deeply divided in recent weeks over brand control and assets related to the protocol. This debate has escalated the long-standing conflict between Aave DAO — the decentralized autonomous organization that governs the protocol — and Aave Labs, the centralized development company behind most of Aave's technology.

The debate has drawn significant attention as it touches on a core issue that many large-scale crypto protocols are facing: the tension between decentralized governance and centralized teams responsible for product deployment. As protocols scale and brands accumulate ever-greater value, the question of “who really controls those assets — the token holders or the building teams?” becomes increasingly unavoidable.

The source of the dispute: revenue and brand ownership

The conflict erupted after Aave integrated CoW Swap, an execution tool, leading to swap fees being redirected to Aave Labs instead of the DAO treasury. Aave Labs contends that this revenue reflects the effort put into user interface development. However, critics view this as a sign of a deeper issue: who really controls the Aave brand — the protocol that holds over $33 billion in assets locked in the network.

Since then, the ownership of Aave-branded assets such as trademarks, domain names, social media accounts, and other distribution channels has become the focal point of debate.

Arguments in Support of Aave Labs

Aave Labs supporters argue that the company's continued control over the brand and related assets is a key factor that helps Aave maintain rapid deployment capabilities and compete on a large scale. According to them, Aave's success in DeFi cannot be separated from Aave Labs' operational autonomy.

Nader Dabit, a former employee of Aave Labs, stated that DAOs are structurally unsuitable for developing competitive software. According to him, in the DAO model, every product decision must go through a vote, and any strategic adjustments require the consensus of token holders, which slows down the implementation speed and makes opportunities easily fall into the hands of competitors.

From this perspective, Aave Labs' management of interface and brand assets helps ensure clear accountability, rapid innovation, and smoother collaboration — particularly with traditional financial institutions that require defined legal partners. Advocates warn that if control of the brand is transferred to a legal entity operated by a DAO, Aave could lose its speed advantage at a critical time.

George Djuric from KPMG also believes that forcing Aave Labs to operate under a model dependent on funding or being overly constrained will turn developers into “political actors” instead of focusing on building products, thereby stifling innovation.

Furthermore, the Labs supporters rebut the view that brand control equates to extracting economic value from the DAO. They emphasize that revenue at the protocol level is still entirely controlled by the DAO, while monetization at the interface level — such as swap integration — is intended to fund development, thereby strengthening the long-term power of the entire Aave ecosystem.

Supporting Viewpoint for Brand Ownership by DAO

On the contrary, supporters of the DAO who hold trademark ownership argue that the issue is not to prevent private companies from building products, but to ensure ownership rights align with where operations and revenue generation currently take place.

Marc Zeller, a long-time collaborator of Aave and founder of the Aave-Chan Initiative, argues that the DAO has now become the “engine” of the system — responsible for risk governance, deploying upgrades, and generating a stable revenue stream — while brand assets serve as the “storefront.” According to him, Aave Labs remains an important development unit, but now operates as a core service provider, similar to other teams funded and overseen by the DAO.

The issue arises when a private entity controls the “front end”, while the DAO and the broader ecosystem are the ones operating the “engine”. In many market cycles, Aave's growth has largely come from independent external teams, who contribute value back to the DAO. If the control of the brand and distribution channel remains outside the DAO, token holders will lack leverage in shaping how Aave is represented, monetized, and led in the long term.

Zeller emphasized that this is a structural issue, not a personal one. The proposal suggests that the DAO owns the brand, with a clear and legally binding management delegation mechanism, which will accurately reflect how Aave operates in practice.

Louis Thomazeau, an investment partner, stated that this could be the most important debate currently regarding the rights of token holders, not just with Aave but also with the entire governance model in crypto. Sam Rushkin, an analyst at Messari, also believes that discussing the rights of token holders is necessary and cannot be overlooked.

Temporary voting results

According to the latest data, about 58% of the votes cast opposed the transfer of ownership of assets associated with Aave to the DAO, while nearly one-third of participants voted for a neutral option. The voting is expected to conclude on Friday.

This dispute not only shapes the future of Aave, but could also set an important precedent for how major crypto protocols handle the relationship between DAO and centralized development teams in the next stage of the industry's maturity.

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