Aave Founder Accused of Vote Buying with $10 Million Token Purchase

Aave co-founder criticized for $10M token purchase to gain voting power.

Co-founder of the DeFi protocol Aave, Stani Kulechov, has faced criticism following his purchase of project tokens worth $10 million. Community members speculated that the transaction was aimed at increasing his voting power in a contentious governance proposal.

I’m surprised that no one is talking about the fact that Stani bought $10M of AAVE, claimed it was bc he is aligned with the token yet in actual fact it was to increase his voting power in anticipation to vote for a proposal directly against the token holders best interests

This…

— Robert (@0xluude) December 23, 2025

DeFi strategist Robert Mullins claimed that Kulechov plans to support an initiative that contradicts the interests of coin holders. A user under the pseudonym Sisyphus also questioned the economic rationale of the purchase.

On AAVE:

I fail to understand why Stani, who must have dumped hundreds of millions of dollars of valueless governance tokens from 2021 to 2025, would rebuy $10 million dollars of tokens in order to try and take a <$10 million dollar revenue stream

— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) December 24, 2025

He noted that from 2021 to 2025, the project’s founder had instead sold millions of dollars’ worth of tokens.

The conflict arose amid a vote on returning control over Aave’s brand, domains, and intellectual property to the governance of DAO.

Former Aave Labs CTO Ernesto Boado, listed as the proposal’s author, stated that trust had been undermined. According to him, the vote on the Snapshot platform was launched prematurely and without his consent.

Analyst Samuel McCulloch pointed out the issue of high centralization of governance in the protocol.

The Aave vote is silly. @Marczeller v @StaniKulechov making up 50% of the vote, followed by some anons (probably from labs) and then rounding out with more ACI supporters.

Top 3 Nay voters have a majority. GG pic.twitter.com/rSdpUsZHhg

— Samuel McCulloch | USD.AI (@ssmccul) December 23, 2025

The three largest addresses control over 58% of the votes. The leading wallet holds 27% (333,000 Aave), while the address associated with Aave Chan Initiative (aci.eth) holds 18.5%.

In December, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concluded a four-year investigation into Aave.