The release of Aave V4 points to a change in how decentralized systems approach risk management, with a more specialized rather than general community voting system. The introduction of risk stewards, risk hedging schemes, and technical choices for each parameter raises a critical question about whether professional risk management and decentralization can coexist.
Aave V4 Introduces Specialized Roles Beyond Community Voting
In Aave v4, the risk stewards are responsible for decision-making tasks which were earlier handled through an open DAO voting process. The parameters that fall under risk stewards include settings for each Spoke individually, such as collateralization and liquidation parameters. The structure reflects the complexity that arises from the Hub-and-Spoke design.
A Spoke is set up with its own risk parameters and is linked with a common Hub to achieve liquidity. At launch, there were three hubs named Core, Prime, and Plus, serving different types of assets. There are ten Spokes set up by partner firms like Lido, EtherFi, Kelp, Ethena, and Lombard, which require individual attention.
Hedging mechanisms and fixed-rate lending facilities are some other features which make decision-making more complex and may increase the need for specialized knowledge. These features were not available in Aave v3 and represent additional governance requirements compared with a simpler parameter-voting model.
Aave V4 Governance Crisis Signals a Shift Away from Grassroots Contributors
The move toward specialized governance coincided with the departure of the Aave Chan Initiative, one of the DAO’s most active contributor groups. ACI had handled 61 percent of governance actions over three years and deployed $101 million in incentives. Its exit followed disagreement over the “Aave Will Win” proposal, which ACI said passed through linked voting addresses.
BGD Labs, the engineering group behind much of Aave V3, also left earlier in 2026 over strategic disagreements. The departure of two major contributor organizations during that same year reduced the number of established independent contributors involved in proposal creation. This change could increase the relative importance of formal appointments and specialized roles, although its effect on the overall distribution of governance power is not established by the departures alone.
Stani Kulechov, who is the founder of Aave, spoke about these resignations and referred to them as “a natural evolution in governance.” Community members have interpreted the resignations differently. Some consider them a move toward greater specialization, while others see them as a potential move toward centralization.
The binding on-chain vote for Aave V4 reflected this split, passing with 60 percent support after a unanimous preliminary Snapshot result. That gap between the informal and formal vote illustrates differences between the two stages of the governance process and the contested nature of the direction. Kulechov’s comment did not resolve the disagreement among community members still weighing the trade-offs.
Aave V4’s Revenue Framework Centralizes Decision-Making Power
The Aave Will Win framework, approved with roughly 75 percent support in April, directs all protocol and application revenue into the DAO treasury. As part of the arrangement, Aave Labs received $25 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens as a development grant. This structure concentrates revenue allocation at the DAO level and gives Aave Labs a defined financial role through the development grant, while the implications for the distribution of decision-making power remain a matter of governance design.
Aave Will Win, the most important proposal in Aave's history just passed with a landslide.
Here's the master plan going forward:
General Direction
– Aave becomes fully token-centric: one asset, one model: $AAVE
– To date, protocol revenue per AIP-1 has accumulated to the Aave…
— Stani (@StaniKulechov) April 12, 2026
The protocol income was about $140 million for 2025, compared to $90 million in the previous year. The application layer brought additional income of between $10 to $20 million. These revenues are collected through the DAO treasury under the new framework, which changes how financial resources are allocated compared with the previous contributor structure. The extent to which this increases organizational concentration depends on how those resources and related decisions are governed.
There are potential effects of such a structure beyond the economics of tokens. With both ACI and BGD Labs having left the ecosystem, there are fewer major independent contributor organizations publicly contesting proposals associated with Aave Labs. The AAVE token fell by 11 percent when the announcement of the withdrawal of ACI was made, although that price movement does not by itself establish a causal link between the withdrawal and the token’s performance.
Aave V4 Raises the Question of Professionalization Without Recentralization
The risk steward model and hedging system of Aave V4 require specialized skills that ordinary token holders may not possess. This creates a governance trade-off: delegating complex risk decisions to specialized participants may reduce the burden on general token-holder voting, while also raising questions about accountability, appointment processes, and the concentration of expertise.
Horizon, an institutional product by Aave, has crossed the $1 billion mark for RWA deposits. Security testing around Aave V4 involved 345 days of audits, a $1.5 million budget, and firms including Trail of Bits and Certora. This scale of preparation helps explain why specialized governance may become more important as the protocol expands toward institutional finance. Managing $23.8 billion in TVL also increases the potential consequences of risk-parameter decisions, regardless of whether those decisions are made through open voting or specialized roles.
The question of whether such professionalization will remain compatible with the principles of decentralization still needs to be answered. The withdrawal of ACI and BGD Labs removed two established contributor organizations that had participated in the ecosystem’s governance and development, potentially changing the balance of perspectives available to challenge or support proposals. With the growing maturity of Aave V4, the relationship between specialized risk management, accountability, and decentralized decision-making is likely to remain an important governance question.
