Aave Founder Proposes Establishment of a Treasury Reserve: Using Earnings to Repay Aave Shortfall and Prevent Market Panic

April 24: Marc Zeller, founder of Aave Chan Initiative (ACI)—an Aave ecosystem contributor—posted a message proposing a non-donation approach to address a deficit, rather than launching a donation drive. The proposal includes: - Creating a deposit vault named “DeFi United ETH” - Redirecting Aave’s wETH revenue to the vault, with a 5% annual yield cap - Tokenizing the vault’s deposit certificates for trading under the name “AaveETH” - Using interest and principal to gradually cover the deficit Zeller also recommended allowing user deposits and capping the vault’s capacity at the size of the worst-case deficit. He noted that if this approach had been adopted earlier, enough funds might have been raised as early as last Saturday. He emphasized Aave’s financial strength: the protocol generates sufficient income, and both Aave DAO and Labs hold reserves in the hundreds of millions of dollars—enough to resolve the issue without sparking market panic. Zeller added he would deposit most of his ETH into the vault.