A dispute over who controls the brand and online presence of Aave, a decentralized lending platform, has spilled into governance and procedures, knocking the AAVE token sharply lower, down 11% in the past 24 hours.

The flashpoint is a governance discussion post from BGD Labs co-founder Ernesto Boado that argues AAVE holders should take formal control of Aave’s “brand assets” such as domains, social handles, naming rights and other gateways. BGD Labs is a group founded by three members of the community that surfaced in 2022.

Leaving those assets in any third party’s hands creates a structural imbalance, according to Boado. Even if a contributor is acting in good faith today, unilateral control over aave.com and the main social media accounts can be used to steer narratives, product distribution and monetization in ways the DAO cannot meaningfully check, Boado said.

Boado’s proposal is framed as an ownership issue first and a product debate second. It does not say Aave Labs should not build the interface or ship products. It argues that the DAO should own the core identity and access points, then decide how those assets can be used, including whether any party gets permission to run them under enforceable terms.

The debate quickly turned into procedural drama.

After several days of discussion, Aave founder Stani Kulechov moved the proposal to a Snapshot vote.

Boado objected, saying the proposal was not being advanced in the spirit he intended. He said Aave Labs had rushed it to a vote, put his name on it and did so without notifying him. In his words, it broke trust and cut short a discussion that was producing meaningful new points.

Kulechov responded saying the process followed established governance norms.

In a post on X, Kulechov said the proposal had been discussed for roughly five days — claiming it to be a typical window before moving to a Snapshot vote — and complied with Aave’s governance framework.

He added that the DAO has previously brought proposals to a vote even when the original authors were third parties.

The outcome of the vote will not just settle an Aave argument. It will test a broader DeFi tension of whether DAOs can own smart contracts onchain, but control over brands and interfaces still tends to sit offchain, where governance is slower, rights are murkier and incentives can diverge.