Aave’s “Aave Will Win” framework cleared its Temp Check stage on Snapshot, advancing to the Aave Request for Final Comment (ARFC) phase. The off-chain vote closed with 52.58% in favor, 42% against and 5.42% abstaining, moving the proposal into the stage where terms may be revised before any binding on-chain vote.
The proposal requests up to $42.5 million in stablecoins plus 75,000 AAVE tokens for Aave Labs. In exchange, Aave Labs would direct 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products to the Aave DAO treasury under a DAO-funded operating model. The measure also links broader adoption of Aave V4 as the protocol’s long-term technical foundation to the governance process if it advances past ARFC.
The relatively narrow margin highlights a split among tokenholders over funding size, governance power and long-term direction. Supporters, including founder Stani Kulechov, said the Temp Check moves the protocol closer to a “fully token-centric model” and that structural refinements will be made during the ARFC stage in response to community feedback.
Critics raised concerns about the scale of the funding package and the inclusion of 75,000 AAVE tokens, which carry voting influence. Calls for clearer definitions of terms and stronger disclosure standards around governance holdings have grown louder as the proposal advances.
Ahead of the vote, competing reports further polarized the discussion: Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) founder Marc Zeller published a transparency review of Aave Labs’ historical funding, while Aave Labs issued its own account of its role in building the protocol since 2017. Those contrasting narratives framed differing views on past value creation and the rationale for future support.
Under Aave’s governance flow, proposals typically progress from Temp Check to ARFC and then to an on-chain Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP). Only on-chain AIPs are binding. If this framework proceeds beyond ARFC, tokenholders would ultimately vote on formalizing the DAO-funded model and ratifying Aave V4 as the long-term technical base.
The final outcome could materially reshape how the Aave ecosystem organizes development, allocates revenue and manages its brand. This report is produced under Cointelegraph’s editorial standards; readers are encouraged to verify information independently.