BGD Labs, a leading service provider to the Aave DAO, announced it will exit the ecosystem by early April, citing Aave Labs‘ push for centralized control. The departure of the team that built much of Aave V3 follows a public governance crisis that began late last year. In response, Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated his company would take over maintenance. The AAVE token price dropped 8% to $115 following the news, reflecting investor concern over the ongoing division.
A major contributor to the Aave decentralized finance protocol is preparing to depart. BGD Labs, a top service provider to the Aave DAO, stated it will quit by early April.
The team’s exit statement faulted Aave Labs for an aggressive push toward centralized control. “Aave Labs believes that the whole Aave DAO and contributors should pivot in the direction they believe in, without sufficient consideration of existing contributors’ expertise,” they wrote on the governance forum.
BGD Labs built most of the current Aave V3 and has maintained it since 2022. The team accused Aave Labs of criticizing V3 to promote its own primarily developed V4.
Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov responded by reassuring the community. “We built V3 and will be happy to take on all maintenance work until the time that the DAO votes otherwise,” he stated on social media.
The governance crisis became public late last year when the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) claimed Aave Labs had taken DAO revenue streams. Aave Labs later proposed a revenue-sharing plan demanding $50 million upfront from the DAO treasury.
Marc Zeller, founder of ACI, called the BGD Labs move ‘devastating’. Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy warned the division could harm the AAVE token.
Following the update, the AAVE token price fell 8% to $115. It later recovered approximately 3%, but uncertainty from the governance crisis persists.
