A governance vote at decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Aave sparked a backlash from key stakeholders after a proposal on ownership of Aave's brand assets was escalated to a snapshot vote amid unresolved discussion.
The proposal asks the community whether Aave (AAVE) token holders should regain control over the protocol’s brand assets, including domains, social handles, naming rights and other intellectual property through a DAO-controlled legal vehicle.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov said the community was interested in a decision, announcing that the proposal had been moved to a vote.
“We realize the community is very interested in a path forward and is ready to make a decision,” Kulechov wrote.
While Kulechov said it was time for tokenholders to vote, other community members argued that the proposal was pushed to a vote prematurely, bypassing governance norms.
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Former Aave Labs chief technology officer Ernesto Boado, whose name appears as the proposal’s author, said the vote was escalated without his consent or knowledge.
“This is not, in ethos, my proposal,” Boado wrote on X, saying that he would not have approved the submission for a vote while community discussion was still ongoing. He said the escalation breaks the code of trust in the community.
Marc Zeller, who leads the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), said the proposal was “unilaterally escalated” despite unresolved questions from delegates and token holders.
In a public statement, Zeller said that the timing and process choices materially reduced community participation, adding that the ability of late-informed participants to mobilize or redelegate was being limited.
“What started as a push for clarity and a more fair relationship between token holders and the current stewards,” Zeller said, “is now turning into a hostile takeover attempt by Labs.”
Zeller criticized the decision of pushing the vote during the holiday period, which large stakeholders, investors and institutions have flagged as one of the “worst windows” for high-stakes governance votes.
Responding to the criticisms, Kulechov said that the discussion has been going on for five days, with many comments, and claimed that the vote complies with all the requirements.
“People are tired of this discussion and getting into a vote is the best way to resolve, this is governance end of the day,” he wrote.
The dispute highlighted deeper governance questions for Aave, one of the biggest DeFi protocols in the space.
While the proposal focuses on “soft” asset ownership, the backlash underscores how much influence can stem from control over escalation, timing and information flow.
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