Simple Summary

Present to the Aave DAO a proposal from BGD Labs to renew our involvement as a development and security coordinator services provider until 1st April 2026 (previous finished 1st October 2025). Additionally, presenting a new BGD project line that will partially use Aave licensed technology: (codename) Project E.

Motivation

During the last months, it has become evident that the DAO is in a pretty different stage than it was before, amongst others:

• Arguably, for the first time, all sub-systems of Aave are in a very advanced stage of maturity: the liquidity protocol, governance, safety module (Umbrella), the GHO stablecoins, and cross-chain communication. We want to believe this is partially due to our contribution to them.
• Since our initial proposal of Aave <> BGD Labs, even as a technical contributor, we have advocated for budget sustainability (e.g., projects like Umbrella are testimony to it). The ecosystem is economically better than ever, with growing (+$140m estimated) yearly revenue, and high-profit margins even if continuously investing in growth. It is easy to make the case for the Aave DAO to be the most sustainable decentralised DeFi system out there, at scale.
• From discussions in this forum last months, in what concerns the liquidity protocol product, the focus of the DAO will tend to be progressively towards the upcoming v4 version by Aave Labs. v3 will remain fully functional and performant for the foreseeable future, but we understand the priority will not be improving it radically anymore.
• The organisation of the DAO and its contributors seems to be evolving, in kind of an inflection point (e.g., topics proposed discussed HERE). This directly affects our contribution line to the DAO, being a service provider until now, touching almost all components of it during the last 3 and a half years.

After having completed our previous engagement for services now on 1st October (recap HERE), we now present a two-sided follow-up proposal adapted to the current state of the DAO and BGD Labs:

1. A similar component on previous renewals focused on maintenance and continuous development of different components of the Aave ecosystem.
2. Introducing to the community Project E, a different line of product by BGD Labs, but highly related to Aave: to partially use Aave licensed technology in exchange of a revenue share agreement on products using it.

Specification

A full description of the scope can be found on the pre-approved ARFC (Aave Request For Comments) HERE and on the Aave Governance Forum HERE, with Snapshot being the most updated from feedback of the community.

In terms of implementation, this proposal sets up the payment schedule defined:

• From the Aave DAO's treasury (Collector smart contract), an upfront transfer for a value of 1'466'000 aUSDC v3 Ethereum; 60% of the total stablecoins budget 1'320'000 plus 146'000 that would have been accrued since October 1st.
• From the Aave DAO AAVE Ecosystem Reserve, an upfront transfer for a value of 2'000 AAVE tokens, 60% of the total tokens budget plus 200 that would have been accrued since October 1st.
• From the Aave DAO's treasury, the creation of a payment stream for a value of 734'000 aGHO v3 Ethereum Prime, from the execution time of this proposal until 1st April 2026 (from proposal execution), completing the 6-month duration, for the other 40% of the stablecoins budget (minus the accrued during October).
• From the Aave DAO AAVE Ecosystem Reserve, the creation of a payment stream for a value of 1'000 AAVE tokens, from the execution time of this proposal until 1st April 2026 (from proposal execution), completing the 6-month duration, for the other 40% of the tokens budget (minus the accrued during October).

The approval of this proposal by Aave governance acts as a binding agreement between the Aave DAO and BGD Labs. Detailed terms of service for the Phase 6 continuous engagement can be found HERE, and Project E terms HERE.

References

• Implementation: AaveV3Ethereum
• Tests: AaveV3Ethereum Snapshot
• Discussion
• Project E agreement IPFS

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.