DAOs Need Evolution, Not Abandonment: Aave Founder Proposes Governance Reform Path

Aave founder Stani Kulechov points out that Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are not heading towards their demise, but urgently need profound adjustments in their governance structures. The problem with many DAOs today is their over-reliance on token holders' universal suffrage to decide all matters, neglecting the necessary role of leaders and core teams in daily operations. In discussing the recent Aave protocol governance controversy, he mentioned that DAOs are highly susceptible to politicization, and voting often evolves into an attention contest. Participants tend to follow the loudest and most煽动性 groups, forming temporary alliances to push their own proposals, rather than making judgments based on the long-term interests of the protocol. "We seem to have retained the least efficient parts of corporate bureaucracy, while in the pursuit of decentralization, we have discarded the links that can truly establish accountability mechanisms," Kulechov said. This does not mean that DAOs have failed; on the contrary, they still have great potential, but they need a more mature governance model. He believes that future DAOs should retain those effective mechanisms, such as transparent proposal processes and the openness of on-chain voting, while abandoning the idealized model of "everyone decides everything." The daily operation of the protocol requires someone with a global perspective who can quickly make difficult but necessary decisions, rather than waiting for thousands of token holders to vote one by one. "Someone has to wake up every morning, with complete context, and take responsibility for driving the protocol forward," he emphasized. True decentralization is not the absence of leadership, but the effective operation of leadership within a framework of transparency and accountability.