Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, says his company will share profits with token holders. This comes as his research firm and the group running the protocol argue over money and control.
Kulechov put out a blog post Friday about the plan. Aave Labs will split revenue from work done outside the main protocol with people who own AAVE tokens.
“Given the recent conversations in the community, at Aave Labs we are committed to sharing revenue generated outside the protocol with token holders,” Kulechov wrote. “Alignment is important for us and for AAVE holders, and we’ll follow up soon with a formal proposal that will include specific structures for how this works.”
Dispute over frontend fees sparks debate
The Aave community has been fighting over profit sharing and ownership questions. The whole thing started when a token holder asked why Aave Labs redirected frontend fees away from the Aave DAO. Aave Labs built the first version of the protocol, but the DAO mostly maintains it now.
The December proposal wanted to move all brand assets, domains, social media and copyright into a DAO-controlled entity. But details remain unclear about how Aave Labs would participate going forward. The centralized entity has handled most of the work and innovation, and nobody knows if the community can deliver the same results.
Other platforms like Cardano have moved to community ownership. For coins like Kaspa, the shift from leadership to community governance hurt the token price.
Push for expansion beyond crypto
Kulechov says both groups need to agree on where Aave goes next. He wants it to grow past crypto and get into real-world assets, consumer lending, and institutional loans.
“We believe the most effective path forward is to allow opinionated teams to build products independently on top of the permissionless Aave Protocol, while the protocol itself captures upside through increased usage and revenue,” Kulechov said.
His post also talked about fixing problems “with respect to branding.” Some people want Aave Labs to give the Aave intellectual property to the DAO.
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