Marc Zeller’s ACI to leave Aave in July amid growing governance tensions

The Aave Chan Initiative (ACI), a leading service provider for the Aave DAO, will exit the DAO by July, marking the second high-profile departure in recent days as governance tensions within Aave continue to build.

“ACI will not seek renewal of its engagement with the Aave DAO,” ACI founder Marc Zeller said in a post shared exclusively with The Block on Tuesday. “ACI will wind down over four months. We will continue governance activity, implement outstanding Skyward commitments, and focus on infrastructure handoff and transition.”

The departure comes shortly after BGD Labs, a core technical contributor to the Aave DeFi protocol, said on Feb. 20 that it will cease contributing to Aave when its contract ends in April, citing disagreements over direction and governance dynamics.

“The main spark is BGD leaving,” Zeller told The Block when asked about the primary reason behind ACI’s decision to step away amid recent developments in the Aave governance dispute.

The Aave governance dispute

The Aave governance dispute began in December when a community member known as EzR3aL questioned why fees from a new CoW Swap integration were being routed to Aave Labs rather than the DAO treasury. The change had not been preceded by a governance vote or formal announcement, prompting concerns about revenue being diverted away from token holders. The discussion quickly escalated into heated forum debates, calls for greater transparency, and volatility in the AAVE token.

The fee controversy widened into a broader debate about control and accountability. BGD Labs proposed transferring control of Aave’s brand assets — including domains, trademarks, and social accounts — to the DAO to prevent future revenue diversions. Aave Labs escalated the matter to a Snapshot vote during the holiday period, but the proposal failed amid abstentions and opposition, including from Aave founder Stani Kulechov.

In January, Kulechov published a post titled “How AAVE will win,” outlining a new framework that included partial revenue sharing from non-protocol products. The discussion evolved in February into a formal temp check proposal from Aave Labs.

The proposal offered to redirect 100% of revenue from Aave-branded products — including the frontend app, swaps, Aave Pro, and the Aave Card — to the DAO treasury in exchange for around $51 million in funding. The package included stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens to support development of Aave v4, which is currently live on testnet. Initial language suggesting a stronger push to migrate from v3 to v4 was later softened following community feedback.

Zeller subsequently published what he described as an accountability review or “audit” of Aave Labs, citing roughly $86 million in historical funding and raising questions about transparency and return on investment.

The “How AAVE will win” temp check ultimately passed with 52.58% voting in favor. Zeller argued that the outcome hinged on voting power linked to Aave Labs. He claimed that excluding roughly 233,000 AAVE from three address clusters he described as Labs-linked — including a 111,000 AAVE delegation from Kulechov — would have reversed the result to approximately 497,100 NAY versus roughly 387,000 YAE.

The temp check “demonstrated that a single entity holds enough voting power to pass its own budget proposals over community opposition,” Zeller said in the shared post. “That same voting power could cancel any active stream at any time. We don’t consider the current governance process decentralized enough to guarantee that existing commitments will be honored.”

ACI stream settlement

As ACI prepares to leave the Aave DAO, it is also seeking to cancel its GHO stablecoin funding stream (ID 100070) on the Aave Collector ahead of schedule. The proposal requests the transfer of 120 days’ worth of the stream to ACI’s treasury, with the remaining balance returning to the Aave Collector. ACI’s contract and funding stream were originally set to run through Nov. 8, 2026.

“Converting the stream to a lump sum is the only way to ensure ACI can deliver a seamless transition without depending on a process where the outcome is controlled by one party,” Zeller said in the post.

He added that if the DAO rejects the proposal, ACI would treat it as a signal that the protocol does not intend to honor its commitments. “In that case we’ll cease all activity immediately, cut our own stream and consider our obligations terminated,” Zeller said.

“That’s not the outcome we want. We’re professionals. We want a graceful wind-down that benefits Aave users and leaves every system we built in good hands. This AIP makes it possible,” he added.

Zeller also wished remaining Aave service providers — Chaos Labs, TokenLogic, LlamaRisk, and Certora — well in his departure note.

Founded in early 2023, ACI operated with eight members and received a total of $4.625 million in compensation over three years, Zeller said. He declined to comment when asked about his future plans.