A major dispute has broken out in the Aave community over where fees from the new CoW Swap integration are going.

Multiple delegates allege that fees generated from swaps on CoW Swap that previously accrued to the Aave DAO are now being diverted to an address controlled by Aave Labs instead of the DAO treasury.

The issue was raised by Aave governance member “EzR3aL,” who claimed that swap fees from trades routed through CoW Swap on Aave’s official interface were being sent to a different onchain address.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Estimates circulating in the forum suggest the rerouting could represent roughly 45 to 50 ETH per week on mainnet alone, translating to about $200,000 weekly and around $10 million annually in foregone revenue.

Marc Zeller, founder of key DAO delegate Aave Chain Initiative (ACI), said the stealth privatization of the DAO’s potential revenue was “extremely concerning” and an attack on the best interest of AAVE token holders.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov addressed some of the backlash, saying that Aave Labs funds, builds, and maintains the front-end interface and adapters, making it a proprietary product separate from the core protocol governed by the DAO.

“It’s also perfectly fine for Aave Labs to monetize its products, especially as they don’t touch the protocol itself,” said Kulechov.