2025-12-25 03:27:08

Lending protocol Aave has recently caused a stir in the community. The core issue is quite sensitive—who is truly in control? The DAO or Aave Labs, the company behind it?

Here's what happened. Aave integrated the trading tool CoW Swap, which is no problem. But the new source of fees has a different destination—some of it flows to Aave Labs instead of the DAO treasury. Some community members were unhappy about this. Aave Labs explained that these revenues come from frontend and product development work, which are at the application level, not the protocol itself, so they don't need to go into the DAO wallet.

It sounds reasonable. But criticism quickly escalated. People began asking deeper questions—who owns the trademarks, domain names, community accounts, and all brand assets of an ecosystem valued at over $33 billion? This is not just about money; it's about power.

Supporters of Aave Labs maintaining control over brand assets argue that centralized management can lead to higher operational efficiency and enhance product competitiveness. But others believe that if it truly is a decentralized autonomous organization, then why should a company hold all the brand assets?

This controversy actually reflects the deeper contradiction within the entire crypto industry—how do you find a balance between the ideal of decentralization and the practical need for efficient execution?

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HypotheticalLiquidator

· 2025-12-28 03:13

A $33 billion vault is controlled by a single company, which is a sign of systemic risk... Now everyone is arguing about efficiency, but when it comes to liquidation, you'll see who truly has the say. Brand assets in the company's hands = single point of failure, and holes will eventually need to be patched.

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0xLuckbox

· 2025-12-26 17:30

It's the same old rhetoric again, protocol level vs application level, hearing it has my ears calloused. Aave now feels a bit like wanting it all and still wanting more; when it comes to making money, it's always theirs, but when there's a loss, they remember the DAO. With a locked-up amount of 33 billion, the brand assets are still in Labs' hands, which is outrageous. True decentralization was long gone; now it's just a matter of who dares to touch this meal.

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MidnightGenesis

· 2025-12-25 16:46

On-chain data shows that the flow of fees has changed. An interesting point is that Labs separates application layer revenue from protocol layer revenue. However, from the code perspective, this explanation doesn't hold water—an ecosystem with a lock-up of 33 billion in assets, how can the brand assets still be held by a single company? As expected.

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NFTArchaeologis

· 2025-12-25 03:57

It's somewhat like the division of power between the church and city-states during the Renaissance. The classic debate of centralization vs decentralization has just moved onto the blockchain.

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BearHugger

· 2025-12-25 03:54

Here we go again with this? Centralization and decentralization are always a joke; in the end, money talks.

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CommunitySlacker

· 2025-12-25 03:49

This is the deadlock of DAO. The promised decentralization ultimately gets strangled by big corporations. It's the same old trick, first promising decentralization, but in the end, money and power are both tightly held. Laughable. The $33 billion ecosystem is being used by Aave Labs as their own company. DAO is just a shell. The issue of fee diversion really irritates people. The term "application level" is too forced; it's basically a literal translation of "I want it, I get it." So, in the end, all these DAO organizations in the crypto world are just paper tigers. The true power always remains with the founding team.

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