Aave Holders Reject Transfer of Brand Assets After Record Vote

Overview

• A Snapshot vote closed Dec. 25 with about 55.3% against, 41.2% abstaining, and 3.5% in favor, reflecting roughly 1.8 million AAVE in voting power.
• AAVE fell around 20% over the week as traders priced governance risk, including a reported sale of about 230,000 AAVE that pressured price levels.
• Founder Stani Kulechov said his roughly $10–15 million AAVE purchase was not used in the vote and pledged clearer communication on economic alignment between Aave Labs and token holders.
• Delegates criticized the holiday timing as rushed, with figures like Marc Zeller urging abstention given an evolving debate and compressed timeline.
• The proposal followed concerns that a CoW Swap integration on Aave’s frontend routed swap fees to an Aave Labs wallet rather than the DAO, even as Kulechov highlighted about $140 million in DAO revenue this year.