Big Brother on the List carried out a rug pull and liquidated his position. Can AAVE, deeply entrenched in a state of emotional polarization, still be bought?

Original Title: "Big Brother Ranking Second Liquidates Holding, Can AAVE Still Be Bought in the Deeply Entrenched Sentiment?"

Original Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

The leading lending protocol Aave is currently caught in a whirlwind of public opinion, with the escalating sentiment of opposition between the team and the community, which has objectively affected hodlers' confidence in the AAVE token itself.

Earlier today, apart from the project team, protocol contracts, and centralized exchanges, the second-largest whale holder of AAVE liquidated a substantial portion, selling 230,000 AAVE tokens (worth around 38 million USD), causing a 12% short-term price drop in AAVE. It is reported that this "Big Brother Ranking Second" had acquired AAVE between the end of last year and the beginning of this year at an average price of $223.4, and the average price of the liquidation today was around $165, resulting in a final loss of 13.45 million USD.

· Odaily Note: The whale's address is https://debank.com/profile/0xa923b13270f8622b5d5960634200dc4302b7611e.

Event Background: Fee Redistribution Controversy

To understand the community crisis at Aave this time, we need to start with a recent change in the Aave frontend.

On December 4, Aave announced a partnership with Cow Swap to use the latter as the default trading pathway for the Aave frontend exchange function (Odaily Note: previously ParaSwap), achieving better pricing through the latter's MEV-resistant function.

Initially, this seemed like a normal feature upgrade, but the community quickly discovered that when ParaSwap was previously used, the additional fees generated by this function (including referral fees or positive slippage surplus fees) were supposed to flow to the Aave DAO treasury address, but after switching to Cow Swap, it was redirected to the Aave Labs address instead.

Community representative EzR3aL first noticed this change not actively disclosed by Aave, raised questions to the Aave team in the governance forum, and estimated that by tracking Aave's revenue flow on Ethereum and Arbitrum alone, this fee was expected to generate around 200,000 USD weekly, corresponding to an annual revenue of over 10 million USD—this indicates that Aave, almost unnoticed, transferred at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the community address to the team address.

Key Dispute: Whose Brand Is Aave Really?

Following the ferment of EzR3aL's post, a large number of AAVE holders have felt betrayed, especially considering that Aave did not communicate with the community before making this change and did not provide any disclosure, somewhat suggesting an intention to conceal this change.

In response to community concerns, Aave Labs provided a direct reply below EzR3aL's post, stating that there should be a clear distinction between the protocol layer and the product layer. Aave's front-end swapping interface is fully operated by Aave Labs, which is responsible for funding, building, and maintaining the feature. This functionality is completely separate from the protocol managed by the DAO, so Aave Labs has the right to independently decide how to operate and generate revenue...Revenue previously flowing to the Aave DAO address was a donation to Aave Labs, not an obligation.

In short, Aave Labs' stance is that Aave's front-end interface and related features essentially belong to the team's product, and revenue generated by them should be considered company property, not to be confused with the protocol controlled by the DAO and its related revenue.

With this statement, a rapid discussion within the community has arisen regarding the ownership of the Aave protocol and product. A well-known DeFi analyst once wrote an article entitled "Who Owns 'Aave': Aave Labs vs Aave DAO," and BlockBeats also republished the Chinese translation for those interested in further reading.

On December 16, the conflict was further exacerbated. Former Aave CTO Ernesto Boado initiated a proposal on the governance forum to transfer control of Aave's brand assets (including domain, social accounts, naming rights, etc.) to AAVE token holders. These assets will be managed through an entity controlled by the DAO (specific form to be determined later) and will have strict anti-takeover protection mechanisms in place.

The proposal received nearly ten thousand views and hundreds of high-quality responses within the Aave governance forum, with various participants in the Aave ecosystem expressing their stance on the proposal below. While some voices also criticized the lack of a thorough execution plan and suspected that it might exacerbate conflicts, the majority of responses expressed support.

Founder Takes a Stand, but Community Is Unconvinced

Amid escalating community sentiment, Aave founder Stani made a forum appearance to respond, stating: "…the proposal takes us in a direction that is detrimental to the Aave ecosystem. It attempts to oversimplify a complex legal and operational issue into a simple 'yes/no' vote, lacking a clear execution path. Dealing with such a complex issue should involve a specifically designed structured process, achieving consensus through multiple checkpoints and specific solutions. For these reasons, I will be voting against this proposal…"

From a business operations standpoint, Stani's claim that the proposal is too hasty may not be unfounded, but in the current discussion environment, this statement can easily be interpreted as 'Aave founder disagrees with transferring brand assets to token holders,' further exacerbating the antagonistic sentiment between the community and the team.

Following Stani's statement, there were even some hostile comments directed at Stani below the original post, while more users expressed their dissatisfaction through the forum or social media. An OG user mentioned considering liquidating their AAVE for the first time, and a loyal AAVE supporter stated: "AAVE holders should realize this is just another DeFi shitcoin. It is neither better nor worse than other coins."

The latest community development is as mentioned at the beginning of this article, with the second whale realizing over a multi-million dollar loss and cutting losses by exiting.

Can AAVE Still Be Bought?

At that time, AAVE was still the darling of A-list institutions like Multicoin Capital, its high-quality brand reputation, strong treasury funds, clear expansion path, robust revenue, and repurchase flow all proving that AAVE is a 'true value coin' distinct from other copycats.

However, in just two weeks, a crisis of public opinion ranging from fee attribution to brand control and team-community relations has plunged AAVE from 'value coin representative' to the center of controversy, even landing it on the list of short-term decliners amidst emotional turmoil.

As of the time of writing, Aave Labs has stated below Ernesto's proposal that they have initiated an ARFC snapshot vote on the proposal, allowing AAVE holders to formally express their stance to clarify the future direction. The outcome of this vote and Aave Labs team's subsequent handling approach are bound to significantly influence Aave's community beliefs and AAVE's short-term price performance.

It is important to emphasize that this event is not simply a "bearish news" or "performance change," but a profound questioning of Aave's existing governance structure and power boundaries.

If you believe that Aave Labs will continue to maintain a high level of alignment with Aave DAO in the long term, and that the current friction is more of a one-time communication and process error, then the emotionally-driven price pullback may be a good buying opportunity. However, if you think that the controversy exposed this time is not just a random issue, but a structural contradiction of long-term unclear interests between the team and the protocol, lacking institutional restraints, then this storm may be just the beginning.

From a broader perspective, Aave's controversy is not unique. As DeFi matures, protocol revenue becomes substantial, and the brand and front end start to have commercial value, some structural contradictions between protocols and products, teams and communities will surface. Aave was put under the spotlight this time not because it made more mistakes, but because it went further.

This debate about fees, brand, and control involves far more than just AAVE and is a question that the entire DeFi industry will sooner or later have to answer.

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