'A hostile takeover attempt': Aave Labs' unilateral push to vote on brand-rights proposal sparks community outcry

Simmering governance tensions within the Aave DAO broke open again on Monday after Aave Labs unilaterally moved a proposal on brand-asset ownership to a Snapshot vote, prompting its author and prominent delegates to accuse the firm of bypassing community process and accelerating a decision that was still under active debate.

Aave Founder Stani Kulechov said that the move marks a step toward clarity, writing on X that the DAO's alignment proposal had been advanced to Snapshot "after extensive discussion" and that the community was "ready to make a decision." Voting opens Dec. 23.

The proposal in question, titled "ARFC $AAVE token alignment. Phase 1 – Ownership," seeks to give AAVE token holders explicit control of the project's brand assets, including domains, social handles, naming rights, GitHub organizations, NPM namespaces, and other channels currently stewarded by Aave Labs, BGD Labs, and other contributors. It also calls for anti-capture protections, DAO-controlled legal structures, and the ability to enforce recourse if brand assets are misused or withheld.

However, the attempt to advance the debate has instead deepened a governance rift already straining the Aave ecosystem.

DAO divided

Its original author, former Aave Labs CTO and BGD Labs co-founder Ernesto Boado, said the version pushed to Snapshot did not reflect his intent.

In a post on X, he said Aave Labs had "unilaterally submitted my proposal to vote in a rush, with my name on it, and without notifying me at all," adding that he "would not have approved it" while community discussion was still active. He called the action "disgraceful," saying it "breaks all codes of trust with the community," and urged tokenholders either not to participate or to vote abstain to avoid legitimizing the escalation.

Aave Labs, in its forum post announcing the Snapshot submission, said five days of discussion demonstrated the need for a formal decision. The firm argued that significant engagement from token holders and delegates warranted moving forward to clarify next steps. "A vote will help bring resolution to this discussion," it wrote, saying the community should refocus on building once the matter is settled.

Boado disagreed, replying directly on the forum that public governance requires open, sometimes difficult debate, not surprise escalation. He said the current vote was "nonexistent" in his view and that it disregarded basic procedural expectations.

The dispute quickly drew in prominent delegates such as Marc Zeller of the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), who said Aave Labs had escalated the proposal "without resolving discussion, without clear consensus, and without consent" from Boado.

Zeller criticized the timing, noting the holiday period reduces coordination and turnout among large holders and institutions. He also pointed to a recent wave of new delegations with sizable voting power, saying the combination "adds to the perception of a rushed escalation optimized for outcome rather than legitimacy."

In his forum post, Zeller characterized the move as a "hostile takeover attempt by Labs," arguing that a measured, two-phase governance process could have avoided the conflict. "This did not have to escalate this way," he wrote. "A truly sad outcome, and one that was entirely preventable."

Aave Labs responds

In response to the criticism, Aave Labs disputed claims made by some delegates and said the escalation followed the project’s governance rules as written. In a statement to The Block, an Aave spokesperson said "the accusation is erroneous," arguing that advancing the proposal to a Snapshot vote after five days of discussion “followed the governance rules exactly as written,” which require a minimum five-day ARFC review period before a vote can begin. Efforts to prolong the discussion period, the firm said, “were not based on governance requirements” and would have deviated from the documented process.

Aave Labs pointed to the Aave Governance Process Document v1, published by the ACI, which outlines a standard lifecycle of Temp Check to ARFC to AIP. The firm said the procedural debate around whether Boado's initial proposal should have begun as a Temp Check is valid, but once it entered the ARFC stage, moving to Snapshot after the five-day window was “fully compliant with governance rules.” Calls to extend the ARFC period, the company added, were “not rooted in governance requirements.”

The governance document states that an ARFC must "be available for review and comment for a minimum of five days" and comply with relevant templates before progressing. Aave Labs also rejected suggestions that encouraging abstentions would improve governance integrity, saying that "increasing abstentions does not ‘fix’ governance — it simply raises the threshold for passage."

"That is a voting strategy, not a procedural principle,” the Aave Labs representative told The Block.

Aave Labs also addressed claims circulating in community forums that advancing the vote just before the Christmas period was done in bad faith, saying the timing reflected established requirements rather than strategic intent. "Nothing was in bad faith. The process was followed and the proposal advanced for a vote as the governance framework describes," the firm told The Block. "DeFi is 24/7."

It also added that prolonged debate was "hurting the Aave brand" and argued that some critics "don’t have the votes to be successful, so they are trying to rewrite the rules." Aave Labs further noted that no governance rule requires permission from a proposal’s author before a vote can proceed, saying the process is determined by "timing and documented guidelines, not individual approval."

Amid the DAO fracas, the AAVE token slumped over 10% in the last 24 hours, according to The Block's price page.

Aave in dispute

The renewed turmoil follows days of friction inside the Aave DAO.

Earlier this month, delegates began probing whether revenue from Aave's CoW Swap integration had been diverted from the DAO treasury, triggering allegations of "stealth privatization" and leading to a direct standoff between community members and Aave Labs.

That debate produced a separate proposal — described by one holder as a "poison pill" — suggesting the DAO consider absorbing Aave Labs entirely if alignment could not be restored.

As tensions mounted, Kulechov published a long-term vision outlining how Aave could scale into a trillion-dollar ecosystem, which coincided with the Securities and Exchange Commission closing a four-year investigation into the project.

At the time, an Aave Labs spokesperson told The Block that the discussions reflected "a maturing ecosystem working through questions of structure, representation, and expectations as it scales."

Updated to include comments from an Aave Labs spokesperson regarding the governance procedure and the decision to advance the proposal to a Snapshot vote.