Aave DAO began voting on Tuesday on a new conflict-of-interest rule proposed by Aave Chan Initiative, requiring recipients of DAO funding to disclose grants and abstain from conflicted votes. The rule would also require disclosure of wallet addresses with voting power and aims to increase transparency and legitimacy (Ed. note: the vote has been narrowly split so far). According to the proposal, the rules target perceived governance capture and risks to the $AAVE token.
Supporters say votes with clear conflicts should be excluded from clean tallies and quorum calculations. The proposal states, “It must be treated as invalid for legitimacy purposes and excluded from any community-recognised ‘clean’ tally, quorum or outcome assessment, even if excluding it would change the result,” and proposes peer-pressure enforcement rather than onchain bans. Marc Zeller wrote the patch is urgent to counter what he calls a “slow motion coup.”
Employees of Aave Labs pushed back, calling the enforcement subjective and destabilising. One comment warned the proposal would create a “parallel governance system with no rules, no finality, and no clear authority.” Founder Stani Kulechov wrote the draft is “poorly written in all respects.”
Voting opened today and the snapshot tally shows a narrow lead for “aye” votes. Other DAO votes this week include Arbitrum DAO, Gnosis DAO, and Jito DAO governance items.
