The leading lending protocol Aave has fallen out with the community and the core development team over a dispute regarding income vesting. What seems to be a simple issue actually reflects the crux of governance and profit distribution in the entire Decentralized Finance ecosystem.

At the beginning of December, Aave officially announced an upgrade to the front-end trading path, changing the default exchange bridge from ParaSwap to Cow Swap, ostensibly to optimize user experience. However, the community is sharp-eyed—someone quickly noticed that the various fees originally flowing into the DAO treasury (such as referral fees and slippage excess) had quietly changed direction. This money now goes directly into the accounts of the development team, Aave Labs. According to the calculations of community members, over $10 million in revenue flows from the collective wallet to the team each year.

The key point has arrived. When the community questioned, Aave Labs' response caused an uproar—they said that the front-end products were developed and operated by the team themselves, so the profits should naturally belong to the company. As for the money that went into the DAO treasury before? That was just a "goodwill donation" and not an obligation at all.

These words directly angered the community. Some pointed to a deeper issue: who should hold the control over the Aave brand and its ecosystem? Subsequently, Aave's former CTO initiated a proposal to formally transfer ownership of brand assets (domain names, social media accounts, partnership rights, etc.) to the token holders. This proposal received strong support from the community.

The event also exposed the helplessness of a giant whale—a secondary holder directly cut losses and left the market due to this controversy, incurring a loss of over $13 million. In the short term, the token price is also under pressure to decline. The deeper issue behind this is quite painful: how can the governance rights and profit rights of DeFi protocols truly align? How can the interests of the team and the community be balanced? These questions not only concern Aave but also affect the future of the entire Decentralized Finance.