Stani Kulechov Rejects Claims of Discounted AAVE Sale to Kraken

The speculation stemmed from reports suggesting Kraken sought to acquire 250,000 AAVE tokens alongside a 15% equity stake in Aave Group. Kulechov clarified that while Aave Labs holds a token allocation that has attracted interest from various market participants, any potential transaction would not involve such steep price concessions. He drew a sharp distinction between Aave Labs, the entity building the protocol, and the Aave DAO, which maintains control over governance and economics.

Under the recently adopted 'Aave Will Win' proposal, all revenue generated by the Aave Protocol, the GHO stablecoin, and associated products like Aave App flows directly to the DAO. Kulechov noted that the protocol currently generates approximately $134 million in annualized revenue. The team is now developing Aavenomics 3.0, which intends to replace manual governance-led buybacks with an automated, non-discretionary mechanism.

Market interest in the protocol remains high, supported by external analysis from Grayscale Research. Analysts recently identified AAVE as undervalued, projecting a potential fair value of $175 if the integration of tokenized real-world assets—such as Treasury products and private credit—continues to scale within decentralized finance. Following Kulechov’s remarks, the token reached an intraday high of $87.50, reflecting continued investor focus on the platform's revenue-sharing model and future utility.