If you're still confused by the entire @aave civil war.

Here’s a clear timeline of what happened↓
> March 2025
Horizon was the first real warning shot.
On paper, Horizon was Aave’s institutional RWA product. A more compliance-friendly setup for institutions using tokenized assets onchain.
But the issue was how the upside was split.
The first Horizon proposal meant the DAO would get a smaller cut over time.
So, for example:
Year 1 = bigger share
Later years = smaller share
I think the community read this more as “Aave Labs is building around the brand while the DAO gets less value.”
I can see why that became a problem for tokenholders.
> April 2025
Horizon gets reworked after the community pushes back.
Labs wanted Horizon structured in a way that gave them more control over the upside. The DAO pushed back hard and forced a more DAO-friendly version.
That already showed there was real tension between what Labs wanted and what the DAO was willing to accept.
Then it went public.
> December 2025
Critics saw the same pattern again with the CoW Swap integration.
This time it was on the front end.
The previous @VeloraDEX setup created DAO revenue, and now the new CoW partner fees were going somewhere else. But where?
On top of that, Aave Labs made the change without DAO approval.
IMO, this started to look more like a power struggle.
> Dec 16, 2025
@bgdlabs, one of Aave’s core technical teams, pushes for DAO control over Aave’s brand assets.
The proposal was simple: if Aave is really DAO-owned, then AAVE holders should formally control the brand, website, socials, and other key offchain assets through a DAO-controlled legal vehicle.
If not, Aave should be forced to rebrand.
Ouch.
> Dec 22, 2025
The community pushes even harder.
They realized that fixing ownership does not matter if tokenholders still do not get more value back.
So they had bigger complaints regarding:
→ interface fees
→ weak value accrual for AAVE holders
→ unclear token utility
→ Avara / Aave Labs kept using the Aave brand
→ the DAO was not getting enough back
From the outside looking in, it looked like Aave Labs was trying to keep too much control.
> Jan-Feb 2026
By this point, Labs had to respond.
They posted on Aave governance, first with the broader vision, then with a formal framework for how they wanted to move forward.
The reaction was not great.
People felt they were still dodging the community’s main issue.
By then, the fight had narrowed down to two questions:
→ who actually controls Aave
→ how do AAVE holders get more of the upside
> Jan 30, 2026
@bgdlabs drops Project E.
Project E was BGD’s plan to build products on top of Aave while sharing revenue with the DAO.
Why drop it?
Because they no longer felt the playing field was fair. One entity had too much control over the ecosystem’s messaging and legitimacy.
> Feb 20, 2026
Then @bgdlabs says it is leaving Aave.
BGD said it would keep working until Apr 1, share offboarding docs, and offer a short security retainer after that.
It was a controlled exit.
But still, one of Aave’s core technical teams was walking away.
> Mar 3, 2026
@AaveChan says it is leaving too.
Another bad sign.
ACI was one of the main governance groups around Aave.
Their point was simple: the system stopped working once Labs had to follow the same rules as everyone else.
With BGD already gone, their own conditions ignored, and Labs-linked wallets voting on Labs’ budget, they said there was no real room left for an independent operator.
> Mar 30, 2026
Aave V4 goes live.
Now the fight stopped being theoretical.
Because BGD was already gone and ACI was winding down, critics were asking whether V4 was just the next upgrade or part of a broader shift in power toward Labs.
I think launching V4 was just a power move.
> Apr 6, 2026
And then @chaoslabs walks.
Chaos was not some side vendor. They had been running a risk for Aave since late 2022.
This was another sign that the people who knew how to run Aave V3 were leaving while Aave was still pushing into V4.
It is weird to me that V4 was being pushed while so many of the teams that were basically holding the ecosystem together were walking away.
Launching V4 in the middle of all this had to be messy.
And even after Aave Labs raised Chaos Labs’ budget to $5M, they still said no.
Probably because V3 + V4 meant more complexity, more risk, and more work than that budget covered.
I get it.
> Apr 12, 2026
Aave Will Win vore passes with a 75% supports. We can look at it as a ceasefire for now.
The proposal is a token-centric model where product and app revenue beyond the core protocol also flows to the DAO, and brand/IP governance gets formalized for tokenholders.
Aave Labs is positioned as the execution arm for a more vertically integrated Aave built around $AAVE.
> Conclusion
Aave's entire civil war was basically an internal fight between Aave Labs/Avara and a DAO-aligned bloc of service providers, delegates, and tokenholders over four big questions:
1. Who gets product-layer revenue?
2. Who controls the Aave brand/IP/frontend?
3. How much real power AAVE holders actually have?
4. Will Aave V4 concentrate more control in Labs rather than the DAO?
So, in conclusion, I think Aave’s civil war was never just about one integration or one budget.
Ultimately, it's about control over Aave.
Whose side are you on?