Nikolas Sargeant
The Aave Chan Initiative, a major governance delegate and service provider within the Aave ecosystem, announced it will not renew engagement with the Aave DAO and plans to wind down operations over the next four months following a contentious funding vote.
ACI founder Marc Zeller stated the organization would continue governance activity and complete outstanding commitments before transferring infrastructure and responsibilities to the DAO or successor providers. "The Aave Chan Initiative was built for Aave. Without a future in the Aave ecosystem, the name no longer applies. ACI will wrap up as our obligations conclude," Zeller wrote Tuesday.
The exit follows a closely contested vote on Aave's "Aave Will Win" proposal seeking to allocate up to $42.5 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens to Aave Labs under a DAO-funded development model. ACI previously questioned the funding package size and inclusion of AAVE tokens carrying voting power.
The off-chain Snapshot vote closed Sunday with 52.58% voting in favor, 42% against, and 5.42% abstaining. Under Aave's governance structure, proposals must advance through the Aave Request for Final Comment stage and another off-chain vote before proceeding to a binding onchain Aave Improvement Proposal vote.
ACI stated the vote was "decided by Labs-linked addresses voting on their own budget," asserting there is "no role for an independent service provider" in an environment where a major budget recipient holds undisclosed voting power and participates in votes affecting its own funding.
ACI will submit a direct-to-AIP proposal to cancel its GHO funding stream and transfer 120 days of payments to the treasury to complete its transition. The organization will also terminate its AAVE vesting stream via LlamaPay following proposal execution.
Aave holds approximately $26.51 billion in total value locked according to DeFiLlama, representing nearly one-third of the $93 billion locked across decentralized finance protocols.
