Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

Aave Delegate Slams Aave Labs’ Track Record as Governance Dispute Continues

Published

on

Source: Aave Governance

Aave-Chan Initiative’s Marc Zeller took to the governance forum to criticize Aave Labs in light of its latest funding request.

The dispute between Aave Labs and the Aave DAO appears to be escalating, with DAO delegates ramping up their hostility after Labs’ “Aave Will Win” proposal requested another $51 million in development funding from the DAO.

On Feb 20, delegate BGD Labs announced its intent to halt its work with the DAO due to Labs’ focus on Aave V4 rather than “a very mature and successful V3.” The decision came after Aave Labs co-founder Stani Kulechov stated in the proposal that “Once V4 is mature, V3 parameters should be gradually adjusted to encourage migration, following the same approach used in past version transitions.”

Marc Zeller, the founder of Aave-Chan Initiative (ACI), another service provider to the Aave DAO, called BGD’s impending departure from the DAO a major change and sold a portion of his AAVE holdings.

Advertisement

Today, the feud between the DAO and Labs was cranked up a notch after Zeller published a full audit of Labs’ performance in the Aave governance forum, bashing Aave Labs’ product delivery, profitability, and business development (BD).

Zeller referred to Labs’ standalone products, including Lens Protocol, GHO v1, and Horizon, as “The Product Graveyard,” citing “zero successes.” He went on to point out that even its more successful launches, such as Horizon, which has commanded over $500 million in total value locked (TVL), still resulted in a negative 96% return on investment (ROI), and that Aave’s stablecoin, GHO v1, depegged and had to be rebuilt by BGD and TokenLogic.

Source: Aave Governance
Source: Aave Governance

The report went on to criticize Aave Labs’ BD department, noting that Labs was set to work with prominent entities in DeFi and traditional finance like Coinbase’s Layer 2 Base, World Liberty Financial, Apollo, and Mantle.

Morpho emerged as the most notable competitor in these relationships and now serves as the backend of Coinbase’s decentralized lending product, and recently announced a partnership with $800 billion asset manager Apollo Global Management.

While the relationship between the DAO and Labs continues to crack, Aave remains DeFi’s leading protocol by TVL, accounting for more than 28% of the DeFi market with $27.5 billion across all chains.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, Morpho is the second largest lending protocol and sixth largest in DeFi with $5.8 billion.

Despite Aave’s leading position in terms of TVL and brand recognition, its native AAVE token is trading near multi-year lows at just $122, or a $1.9 billion fully diluted valuation, after reaching as high as $380 in December 2024 and $660 in 2021.

AAVE Chart - CoinGecko
AAVE Chart – CoinGecko

Aave Labs did not respond to The Defiant’s request for comment.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

White House Warns Staff as Iran Bets Spark Insider Concerns

Published

on

White House Warns Staff as Iran Bets Spark Insider Concerns

The White House warned staff against improperly using confidential information to place bets in futures markets after suspicious oil trades ahead of President Donald Trump’s March 23 Iran announcement drew scrutiny, according to Reuters.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the White House sent the internal email on March 24, a day after Trump ordered a five-day delay in attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure.

The warning followed a roughly $500 million bet on Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude futures placed in a one-minute burst shortly before Trump’s March 23 announcement, according to Reuters calculations based on exchange data. Oil prices fell about 15% after the policy shift.

The episode has intensified scrutiny of whether officials or politically connected traders could profit from nonpublic information tied to military or policy decisions. It has also added momentum to a broader push in Washington to tighten rules around prediction-market trading.

Advertisement

The STOCK Act amendment in the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) prohibits federal officials, congress members, executive staff and judicial officers from using non-public information derived from their positions to trade commodity, futures or options markets. The amendment was signed into law on April 4, 2012.

Cointelegraph has approached the White House for a copy of the internal email.

Related: US Senate bill targets prediction markets on war and assassinations

Lawmakers respond to prediction market insider trading concerns

Lawmakers have also stepped up scrutiny of prediction markets, where well-timed bets tied to military and political events have raised similar concerns about the misuse of privileged information. Polymarket traders netted around $1 million by accurately betting when the US would strike Iran.

Advertisement

In response to the concerns, Congressman Adrian Smith and Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski introduced the Preventing Real-time Exploitation and Deceptive Insider Congressional Trading Act (PREDICT Act) on March 25, a bipartisan bill seeking to ban members of Congress and federal officials from prediction market trading.

On March 26, US lawmakers Todd Young, Elissa Slotkin, John Curtis and Adam Schiff unveiled the bipartisan Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026, a bill aimed at curbing prediction market insider trading by government officials.

End Prediction Market Corruption Act. Source: Merkley.senate.gov

The same day, Senator Jeff Merkley introduced the End Prediction Market Corruption Act, seeking to ban event contract trading by government officials with “material non-public information,” including the president, vice president and members of Congress.

Magazine: Crypto traders ‘fool themselves’ with price predictions — Peter Brandt