Overview
- Aave Labs replaced ParaSwap with CoW Swap on Aave’s primary website, ending referral fees that governance delegates estimate at roughly $200,000 per week for the DAO treasury.
- Delegates, led publicly by Marc Zeller, denounced the move as a unilateral “stealth privatization” and raised questions about expected fiduciary duties to token holders.
- Founder Stani Kulechov argued the prior ParaSwap fees were a discretionary surplus rather than protocol-mandated revenue.
- Aave Labs says the integration prioritizes better execution and MEV protection and characterizes the front-end as a privately funded product the company may manage and monetize.
- The dispute remains unresolved and has broadened into concerns about unilateral decision-making and transparency ahead of the planned V4 upgrade.