Wintermute Founder Rejects Aave (AAVE) Token Alignment Plan as Governance Rift Deepens

Wintermute said it will vote against Aave’s token alignment proposal, citing unclear governance, weak value capture, and escalating political infighting.

Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the trading firm will vote against Aave’s token alignment proposal, adding to the growing opposition within the Aave DAO as the vote nears its conclusion.

In a detailed thread on X, Gaevoy said Wintermute disagrees with the proposal “as it stands,” while arguing that it asks tokenholders to commit to a major course of action without sufficient clarity on structure, governance, or outcomes. He disclosed that Wintermute has been an investor in AAVE since 2022 and participates actively in governance, but neither he nor the firm has any equity exposure to Aave Labs.

Wintermute Slams Proposal

According to the exec, the main issue is value accrual and a widening expectation mismatch between Aave Labs and a significant portion of AAVE tokenholders over who should capture value and how key external functions, particularly business development, should operate. He said those unresolved tensions make the current proposal premature and potentially harmful.

Gaevoy also criticized the tone and politics surrounding the vote. While acknowledging that Aave founder Stani Kulechov’s communications “have been far from perfect,” he said the backlash against Aave Labs has gone too far and has negatively impacted the token’s price.

Both sides, he added, are accusing each other of “hostile takeovers,” a claim he said has some validity depending on perspective. Gaevoy also said that reversing or softening earlier decisions, such as fee-related changes, could have helped reset the situation. But instead, the dispute escalated.

He framed the vote as a “temperature check” rather than a decisive endpoint, saying the real priority should be de-escalation and serious work on long-term solutions for token value capture. While urging Aave Labs to engage constructively after the vote, Gaevoy wrote,

“Whether it succeeds or fails doesn’t really matter.”

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The comments come as the token alignment proposal appears unlikely to pass. Snapshot data shows that a majority of AAVE DAO voters are opposed or abstaining, with roughly 55% voting against the proposal, about 41% abstaining, and 3.5% voting in favor. Voting is set for December 26.

Critics have argued that Aave Labs rushed the governance process and pushed the proposal to a vote while discussions were still ongoing. The broader dispute traces back to a conflict over swap fee diversion, worth millions of dollars, that would have benefited the company rather than the DAO treasury.

The alignment proposal itself focuses on tokenholders seeking control over Aave’s brand assets, including domains, social media accounts, and naming rights. The end goal is to ensure that any entity holding those assets remains accountable to the DAO.

2026 Roadmap

Prior to the governance tensions, the platform laid out an ambitious roadmap for 2026 that aims to scale the protocol well beyond its current footprint. Kulechov unveiled the plan, which centers on three pillars: Aave V4, Horizon, and the Aave App. Aave V4 is expected to redesign the lending protocol to reduce liquidity fragmentation and support much larger capital flows.

Horizon focuses on institutional users, allowing firms to borrow against tokenized real-world assets such as US Treasuries while meeting compliance needs. Meanwhile, the Aave App is positioned as a consumer-facing product aimed at onboarding millions of new users as Aave targets broader adoption.