BGD Labs announced it will end its engagement with the Aave DAO on April 1, 2026, closing four years as a core technical contributor to the Aave protocol.
The firm proposed a structured offboarding process alongside a $200,000 two-month security retainer covering incident response for Aave v3, governance and Umbrella from April 1 to June 1, 2026, subject to a standalone governance vote.
“It goes without saying, but I am also in favour of keeping BGD within the DAO on their proposed security retainer and will vote accordingly,”
Said Aave founder, Stani Kulechov.
BGD attributed its departure to shifting organisational dynamics within the DAO, particularly after Aave Labs pivoted towards becoming a more central contributor focused on v4 development, which it said reduced alignment with its operating approach.
The team highlighted disagreements over the framing of Aave v4 relative to v3, including concerns about pausing new feature development on v3 and outlining a deprecation path before v4 goes live, while maintaining that v3 remains mature and production-ready with further improvement potential.
BGD confirmed that until April 1 its existing scope will continue without disruption, including upgrades, security work and new chain integrations, and said it will publish documentation to enable other contributors to assume maintenance responsibilities for projects extending beyond that date.
Aave, the project’s native token, fell 3.3% on Sunday, February 22, and is down 7% over the past week, partially reversing gains made after Grayscale’s S-1 filing, with total value locked across the protocol standing at $26.86 billion.
At the time of reporting, Aave price was $117.75.