BGD Labs to Exit Aave DAO on April 1, 2026 After v4 Disagreements; AAVE Down About 3%

BGD Labs said it will stop working with the Aave DAO when its current contract ends on April 1, 2026, due to disagreements over the protocol's future direction and pressure to prioritize v4 while v3 remains the main system in use, in a new blog post. Aave is currently the largest decentralized finance protocol, with more than $26.8 billion in total value locked, according to DeFiLlama; the v4 testnet went live in November 2025 and introduced a hub‑and‑spoke architecture aimed at reshaping DeFi lending. BGD said it will continue working as usual and then hand off projects so other teams can take over, emphasized that its decision was not driven by technical problems and that many issues identified in 2022 have been resolved, and characterized v3 as a solid, future‑proof system with governance that works. Separately, Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave Chan Initiative, said on Telegram that the departure changes everything and disclosed he sold part of his token holdings; AAVE is around $118, down about 3% over the past 24 hours.