[ARFC] ACI Phase IV – “Road to 80”

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Title: [ARFC] ACI Phase IV – "Road to 80"

Author: @marczeller – Aave Chan Initiative (ACI)

Date: 2025-04-16

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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.

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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.

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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)

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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.

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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)

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Specifications

• Proposal Duration: 12 months (365 days)
• Budget Requested: 3M aEthLidoGHO
• Stream Method: Yearly linear stream, replacing any previous funding streams

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Next Steps

1. Collect community feedback on this ARFC
2. If feedback is positive, escalate to Snapshot for signaling
3. Upon Snapshot approval, submit onchain AIP to renew ACI mandate

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Disclaimer

This ARFC is submitted by the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) independently and without third-party compensation or sponsorship.

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Copyright

This proposal is published under a CC0 license. All rights waived.