After months of governance conflict over fee control, Aave’s DAO voted with nearly 75% support to route all product revenue to AAVE token holders under the new “Aave Will Win” framework.

Aave’s governance passed the “Aave Will Win” (AWW) proposal on Saturday, ending a months-long fight over who controls the protocol’s revenue. The vote carried with nearly 75% support, marking one of the most decisive outcomes in the DAO’s history and reshaping how DeFi’s largest lending protocol distributes economic value.

Under the new framework, 100% of gross revenue generated by Aave-branded products — including Aave Pro, Aave App, Horizon, and Aave Kit — flows directly to the DAO treasury. Protocol revenue reached $140 million in 2025 and is on a similar trajectory for 2026, while swaps on Aave.com and Aave Pro are already generating an additional $10 to $20 million on top of existing fees. In exchange for redirecting that revenue, Aave Labs received a $25 million stablecoin allocation payable over 12 months and 75,000 AAVE tokens vesting over four years.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

The dispute traced back to December 2025, when community delegates discovered that the integration of trading aggregator CoWSwap into the Aave interface had quietly redirected swap fees away from the DAO treasury to an external recipient. The revelation ignited a broader fight over whether Aave Labs or the DAO controlled the protocol’s most valuable asset — its user-facing products and the revenue they generate. A contentious holiday-season vote over brand asset ownership failed, with 55% of votes cast in opposition, before the AWW framework emerged as a negotiated resolution.

The proposal also ratifies Aave V4 — launched March 30 — as the protocol’s long-term technical foundation, introduces plans for a new Aave Foundation to steward the brand, and commits Aave Labs to working exclusively on Aave-related products. Founder Stani Kulechov framed the result as a turning point, writing on X that if you own AAVE, you now own “not just the economic rights of the protocol, but the brand, the users, and the integrations.” His stated goal is scaling from $40 billion to $1 trillion in assets under management.

The governance saga had real market consequences. A whale sold $38 million of AAVE during the December dispute, pushing the token down 10 to 20%. Core infrastructure contributor BGD Labs — the team behind Aave V3 — exited in early April, citing governance tensions with Aave Labs as a central reason. Saturday’s landslide vote may not fully repair those fractures, but it does provide AAVE holders with the clearest claim to the protocol’s future revenues they have ever had.