Aave DAO Protests Fee Routing to Aave Labs in CoW Swap Deal

The argument has drawn attention to who should control the income generated through Aave’s products, the DAO or Aave Labs.

The issue was first brought up by a community member known as EzR3aL. They claimed that fees collected from trades made through CoW Swap are not being sent to the DAO’s treasury.

Instead, the funds appear to be going to a wallet controlled by Aave Labs.

EzR3aL questioned why this change was made without the DAO’s input and argued that the earnings belong to the community. They estimated that about $200,000 in Ethereum
ETH


$2,947.97

is being redirected each week, which totals about $10 million a year.

In response, Aave Labs explained that it has always handled the user-facing parts of Aave’s platform, including the website and app. The company said that while protocol-level updates are decided by the DAO, operational features tied to the interface fall under its own responsibility.

Aave Labs also stated that it funded the development of the “adapters”, the code that enables the CoW Swap integration. However, this answer did not ease concerns.

Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave-Chan Initiative, a group that represents DAO members in governance matters, described the decision to send all fees to Aave Labs as concerning and said it shifts user activity away from Aave’s ecosystem.

Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, has suggested giving 17.45 million CRV
CRV


$0.3514

tokens to Swiss Stake AG. What is the goal of the proposal? Read the full story.