ACI Phase IV – “Road to 80”
01Summary
ACI (Aave Chan Initiative) seeks a 12-month renewal and expansion of its mandate as Aave DAO's growth and governance service provider, requesting 3M aEthLidoGHO. The proposal aims to expand Aave's market share to 80% of active DeFi loans, scale MASIv partnerships, launch CeDeFi integrations, expand Frontier node infrastructure, establish multi-chain capabilities, and grow the core team from 8 members.
- Type
- governance change
- Funding
- $3000000
Key changes
- Renew and expand ACI mandate for 12 months with focus on reaching 80% market share of active DeFi loans(high)
- Budget allocation of 3M aEthLidoGHO via yearly linear stream for ACI operations(high)
- Expand MASIv (Merit-as-a-Service Incentive Vault) as standard growth engine with new client onboarding(high)
- Launch CeDeFi partnership with top-tier centralized exchange(high)
- Scale Frontier node infrastructure and establish multi-chain capability beginning with Aptos(high)
- Expand ACI core team from 8 members with new technical, governance, and ecosystem roles(medium)
- Continue governance operations including ARFC & AIP drafting, Snapshot/Discourse management, and delegate onboarding(medium)
Notable concerns
- ACI explicitly not responsible for direct smart contract development or protocol codebase maintenance
- Dependency on technical service providers for non-EVM ecosystems and Aave V4 support
- Out of scope: protocol-level parameter tuning and DAO treasury operations beyond ACI mandates
- Deliverables executed on best-effort basis with potential for delays or limitations
Generated by Kvorum
02Description
Simple Summary
This ARFC proposes renewing and expanding the Aave Chan Initiative’s (ACI) mandate as the Aave DAO’s Growth and Governance Coordination service provider. Focusing on sustained protocol growth, strategic alignment, and governance operational excellence.
Motivation
Since its inception, ACI has served as the growth engine and governance orchestrator for the Aave DAO. Through managing incentive programs, launching key protocol initiatives, building strategic partnerships, and contributing to governance frameworks, ACI has delivered consistent, high-impact results. During 2024, Aave’s share of the active loan market increased from below 50% to 71.2%, significantly outperforming competitors across the DeFi landscape.
To keep this proposal concise, a retrospective of ACI’s past mandate has been published separately
Strategic Objectives of the next mandate
1. “Road to 80” – Market Share Leadership
Our core KPI: reach 80% of total active DeFi loans across all tracked platforms by expanding Aave’s competitive edge through product innovation, liquidity programs, and strategic onboarding and business development.
2. MASIv Expansion
Extend the Merit-as-a-Service Incentive Vault model as the standard growth and incentives engine for partners using Aave and DeFi in general. Building on early adoption from Circle, Tether, Ava Labs, Stader and others, Phase IV will onboard new MASIv clients and create synergistic feedback loops for the Aave ecosystem.
3. CeDeFi partnership Launch
Deliver a CeDeFi partnership with a top-tier centralized exchange providing CeFi access to DeFi-native yield.
4. Node Infrastructure via Frontier
Continue developing Frontier, our Aave-native node infrastructure, on a larger scale. Ensure DAO readiness for Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade and expand node partnerships with Lido, EtherFi, and others.
5. Multi-Chain Capability
Establish ACI’s readiness to operate across non-EVM chains, beginning with Aptos, in preparation for a multi-VM DeFi future.
6. Team Scaling & Increased Alignment
Expand the ACI core team (currently 8 members) with new hires in technical, governance, and ecosystem roles.
ACI Deliverables
ACI deliverables are executed on a best-effort basis, with transparency and proactive communication regarding any limitations or delays, while aiming to exceed expectations whenever possible.
A. Growth & Governance
- Strategy, design, and execution of growth programs in partnership with Aave DAO’s service providers (Tokenlogic)
- CeDeFi partnerships.
- Coordination of incentive frameworks (MASIv, Liquidity Mining)
- ARFC & AIP drafting and governance operations via Skywards services
B. Infrastructure
- Frontier node services compatible for LSTs and re-staking protocols
- Technical contribution to GHO, MASIv, and DAO tooling as requested and in sync with service providers relevant leads
- Partnership integrations.
C. Community & Coordination
- Management of Snapshot and Discourse (via Dolce Vita)
- Delegate onboarding & incentive structuring (Orbit)
- Proposal escalation and support (Skywards)
- Aave Protocol Embassy (APE) coordination and expansion (delegation-aware aTokens)
Limitation Of Scope
ACI is not a core developer or maintainer of the Aave protocol codebase. We rely on technical service providers’ tooling and infrastructure. While we have provided support in the past, ACI will not develop protocol infrastructure tools during this mandate.
For non-EVM ecosystems and Aave V4 (whose codebase is currently unknown to ACI), we will fully depend on technical service providers like @aavelabs to provide the necessary tooling and documentation to fulfill our responsibilities.
Out of Scope
The ACI clearly defines the following activities as out of scope, based on either our internal capabilities or to respect the roles of other Aave DAO service providers:
- Direct smart contract development (except for AIP payloads within our scope), auditing, or formal verification (delegated to technical and audit service providers)
- Protocol-level parameter tuning (delegated to technical and Risk Service Providers)
- DAO Treasury or financial operations not governed by ACI mandates (leadership delegated to TokenLogic)
Specification
- Proposal Duration: 12 months (365 days)
- Budget Requested: 3M aEthLidoGHO
- Stream Method: Yearly linear stream
References
- Implementation: AaveV3EthereumLido
- Tests: AaveV3EthereumLido Snapshot
- Discussion
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.
03Mismatch analysis
The proposal follows the standard Aave governance pattern where the on-chain vote executes a single `execute()` call on a payload contract; the actual sub-actions (e.g., creating a GHO stream, transferring 3M aEthLidoGHO) are implemented inside that payload's bytecode and are not individually decoded in the provided calldata. Because only the outer call is visible, there is no way to directly verify the specific budget amount, token, recipient, or stream duration described in the prose against granular on-chain parameters. There is no evidence of contradiction between the description and the visible calldata — the single action is consistent with what would be expected for implementing a funding/mandate renewal proposal like this. However, since the decoded action set is minimal and opaque (just a fallback execute() call), confidence in a full line-by-line verification is low. No red flags (wrong target, extra hidden transfers, mismatched values) are apparent from what is decoded, so the assessment defaults to consistent with low confidence rather than flagging speculative discrepancies.}],
Generated by Kvorum
04Actions
- Target
- 0x3bfc…89b2
- Value
- 0 wei
- Function
- fallback()
- Arguments
{}- Calldata
05Tally
Summed from votes
06Voters
No votes recorded yet.
07Forum
No forum thread is confidently linked to this proposal.
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