BlockBeats News, February 25 — Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave ecosystem contribution organization ACI, released an open report revealing that since 2017, Aave Labs has received approximately $86 million in capital support, including ICO, VC funding, and direct DAO grants. The founding team retained 23% of the LEND tokens during the 2017 ICO (later migrated 100:1 to AAVE). The report states that before receiving DAO funds, Labs had a capital base of about $48.7 million, and later received approximately $37.4 million in grants from the DAO. Currently, they are applying for an additional $51 million through the “Aave Will Win” proposal.
The report mainly questions Labs’ past product performance, stating that apart from the core protocol, six independent products launched have all failed or not achieved profitability. Among them, the RWA project Horizon claimed to have surpassed $1 billion in scale, but the actual RWA collateral was about $135 million, heavily concentrated in a single asset. Since its launch in August 2025, Horizon has generated about $216,000 in total revenue for the DAO, while incentives and related costs amounted to approximately $5.25 million, resulting in a return on investment of about 24:1.
The report also notes that early core developers of Aave V1, V2, and V3.0 left Labs between 2021 and 2022. V3.0 is considered the last major protocol version led by Labs, with subsequent versions mainly driven by DAO service providers. In related governance votes, a single large delegated address played a key role in passing the Horizon proposal, sparking community discussions about governance power concentration and fund utilization efficiency.
These controversies come at a time when a new $17.5 million product growth funding proposal is under review, further fueling discussions within the Aave community about fund allocation, performance disclosure, and governance transparency.
Disclaimer: The information on this page may come from third parties and does not represent the views or opinions of Gate. The content displayed on this page is for reference only and does not constitute any financial, investment, or legal advice. Gate does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information and shall not be liable for any losses arising from the use of this information. Virtual asset investments carry high risks and are subject to significant price volatility. You may lose all of your invested principal. Please fully understand the relevant risks and make prudent decisions based on your own financial situation and risk tolerance. For details, please refer to
Disclaimer.
Related Articles
Hedera assists the Reserve Bank of Australia in completing 19 real transactions, verifying 24 tokenization scenarios
The Reserve Bank of Australia successfully completed 19 real financial transactions using Hedera technology under the "Golden Wattle Project," exploring 24 tokenization applications, including bonds and trade finance. This pilot not only confirmed Hedera's technological suitability but also provided practical references for future widespread adoption of tokenized assets by central banks and attracted the attention of other central banks.
MarketWhisper46m ago
NAORIS (Naoris Protocol) up 28.49% in the last 24 hours
Gate News Bot Message, March 09 — According to CoinMarketCap data, as of press time, NAORIS (Naoris Protocol) is trading at $0.04, up 28.49% in the past 24 hours. The highest price reached $0.04, while the lowest dropped to $0.02. The current market capitalization is approximately $23 million, an increase of $5.09 million from yesterday.
Naoris Protocol is the first Sub-Zero Layer 1 blockchain, combining security layer and sovereign L1. It uses dPoSec™ consensus mechanism, Swarm AI, and quantum-resistant DePIN architecture to provide real-time trust verification for the entire decentralized ecosystem. The project completed testnet launch on January 31, 2025, and finished testnet and officially launched $NAORIS token trading on November 12.
Protocol
GateNews55m ago
XRPL 7 million accounts' idle liquidity awaiting activation, payment super app accelerates deployment
Anodos Finance CEO Panos Mekras stated that XRPL has over 7 million accounts and billions of dollars in idle XRP, emphasizing that these assets need to be transformed into everyday payment applications. Anodos plans to launch a financial super app and a self-custody card, utilizing the RLUSD stablecoin to address price volatility issues and promote the practical use of XRPL.
MarketWhisper59m ago
Pi Network explores decentralized AI training, with 421,000 nodes trialing image recognition
Pi Network successfully completed a proof of concept for AI image recognition, with over 421,000 nodes participating in computation. Testing showed low-latency responses and scalable computing power. This achievement provides early validation for decentralized AI training but still requires further research and commercial deployment.
MarketWhisper1h ago
Orderly launches Orderly Skills to provide on-chain derivatives trading capabilities for AI Agents
Orderly launched the Orderly Skills product on March 9. This product supports AI Agent development of applications based on its perpetual futures trading infrastructure, featuring trading management, order book streaming, DEX interface building, and cross-chain fund management functionalities.
GateNews1h ago
