The Aave community has erupted in governance controversy, and the integration of CoW Swap may lead to the privatization of DAO revenue

Recently, the Aave community has erupted in governance controversy, focusing on whether the integration of CoW Swap has caused protocol revenue to flow to Aave Labs instead of Aave DAO. A representative named "EzR3aL" posted on the governance forum, stating that their on-chain analysis shows that transaction fees generated through the new CoW Swap interface are no longer flowing into the DAO treasury but are instead directed to an independent address, estimated to be worth about $200,000 per week.

Marc Zeller, head of the Aave Chan Initiative, described the situation as "extremely concerning," accusing it of being a "secret privatization of about 10% of Aave DAO's potential revenue." The controversy has also extended to the revenue distribution issues related to Aave Vaults, Horizon, and the Aave v4 liquidation engine. Aave founder Stani Kulechov responded by stating that Aave Labs has the right to monetize the front-end interface it developed, especially features beyond the protocol's functionality, and emphasized that its goal is to increase protocol users and revenue through new features.