Aave's two paths: continue to earn passively with v3 or fully push for v4?

Regarding the development direction of the Aave protocol, some recent viewpoints have not clearly explained the ins and outs.

In the past few years, Avara and Aave Labs have been busy with a major task - developing Aave v4, which is funded by a $15 million grant from the DAO. During the same period, what about the service providers and DAOs like ACI, BGD, TokenLogic, and LlamaRisk? They have basically been working on the expansion and growth of Aave v3.

What is the result? v3 has become the largest lending protocol on the blockchain, truly a “cash cow,” with annual net income in the tens of millions of dollars range. From any perspective, the work this group has done around v3 is commendable.

In contrast, Avara invested a lot of resources in projects or acquisitions that had little direct relation to the Aave ecosystem while developing v4, and looking back, these investments did not bring much incremental value to the ecosystem.

Because of this matter, the Aave community now has disagreements on the future direction. The core issue is two paths: one is to fully push for the v4 migration, effectively gradually phasing out v3; the other is to allow v3 and v4 to coexist in the long term, continuing to support v3. Aave Labs wants to take the first path, but ACI, BGD, and other service providers generally prefer the second path.

In this context, who controls the Aave brand and IP becomes particularly crucial, especially the frontend aave.com—this is the most important and commonly used entry point for users to access the Aave protocol. It's not just a matter of frontend transaction fees; on a deeper level, it's about who holds the “traffic lifeline” of the ecosystem, and which set of v3/v4 development plans will ultimately be executed.