[ARFC] Deploy a Whitelabel Aave V3 Instance on Ink

[ARFC] Deploy a Whitelabel Aave V3 Instance on Ink

Author: Ink Foundation & ACI

Date: 2025-06-19

Summary

This proposal aims to deploy a whitelabel version of Aave V3 for the Ink Foundation. By granting a license to deploy a centralized version of the Aave codebase, Aave can expand its technology adoption while creating new revenue streams through partnerships with innovative platforms.

Motivation

The Ink Foundation seeks to leverage Aave's battle-tested infrastructure to create a native lending platform. This partnership represents an opportunity for Aave to expand its influence in the institutional lending space while maintaining its commitment to technological excellence.

Specification

Key aspects of this deployment include:

• Centralized Governance: The instance will initially be centrally governed by the Ink Foundation without a governance token
• Service Provider Support: Aave DAO service providers (including ACI, Chaos Labs, and others) will maintain and contribute to the deployment for the initial 6-month period, after which Ink Foundation will need to establish a commercial arrangement for continued support
• Revenue Sharing: The Aave DAO will receive a share of all revenue generated by the platform. This should be greater than or equal to the equivalent of a Reserve Factor of 5% based on borrow volume in all pools.
• Insurance Disclaimer: This instance will not be covered by the DAO-operated Umbrella.
• Branding: The instance will be branded as "Powered by Aave" but retain unique branding as determined by Ink Foundation.
• Ink Foundation and its centralized partners will focus on this instance as their exclusive onchain lending vertical and will refrain from communicating, incentivizing, integrating or doing partnerships with other lending protocols for a minimal period of 12 months after deployment.

POL and Incentives

The Ink Foundation has committed significant incentives to bootstrapping this instance. This includes multiple liquidity mining programs that are expected to bring over $250m in early supply to the instance.

A initial amount of 4% of future governance token supply has been allocated to bootstrapping incentives. In addition the Aave DAO will authorize incentives for a mix of use cases including but not limited to user borrowing rebates, GHO liquidity incentives, and revenue cash back. These incentives can be in a mix of GHO or Aave tokens. AFC is responsible to manage the incentives paid by Aave DAO and will finance them via treasury AIPs.

The Ink Foundation is committed to making the instance a success and will work with Aave service providers to plan and distribute incentives to users.

Next Steps

1. If consensus is reached on this [ARFC], escalate this proposal to the Snapshot stage.
2. If the Snapshot outcome is YAE, this proposal will be escalated to AIP stage.
3. AIP written with relevant infrastructure deployment made on Ink chain and governance transferred to Ink Foundation.

Disclaimer:

This proposal is powered by Skywards. The Aave Chan Initiative is not directly affiliated with Ink and did not receive compensation for the creation of this proposal.

Copyright:

Copyright and related rights waived under CC0