The Aave DAO’s primary technical service provider, BGD Labs, will cease contributing to the protocol on April 1, 2026, when its current engagement concludes. The move will end a collaboration of more than three years during which BGD helped ship and maintain key versions of the lending protocol and its governance stack.
How BGD Became Central to Aave’s Technology
BGD Labs, founded by former Aave CTO Ernesto Boado, has acted as Aave’s main development and security coordination partner since 2022 under a series of time‑boxed “phase” contracts. Across those phases, BGD led work on Aave v3 upgrades, network deployments, governance tooling, emergency systems, and bug‑fixing for older versions.
In its public recaps, BGD highlighted contributions such as deprecating Aave v1, maintaining v2 and v3, designing “Liquid eModes,” and coordinating audits and incident responses. The team also built and maintained interfaces, such as the Aave Governance v3 front end and the a.DI monitoring dashboard, and automation tools, such as Aave Robot and Seatbelt, used to monitor proposals.
The current Phase 6 agreement, approved by governance in October 2025, extended BGD’s role in development and security coordination until 1 April 2026 and included payment in both stablecoins and AAVE tokens from the DAO’s reserves. Governance documents describe that deal as a “binding agreement” between the DAO and BGD, with the DAO retaining all IP and final say over product decisions.
Why BGD Labs Is Stepping Back and What Comes Next
In posts and community discussions this month, BGD Labs told token holders it would not seek another technical services mandate after Phase 6 ends and would instead focus on independent products. That decision followed a separate January note where BGD dropped plans for “Project E,” a commercial product line that would have used Aave code, citing conflicts with its duty to the DAO.
In a late-2025 token alignment proposal, BGD also raised concerns about governance alignment and control over Aave brand assets, stating that AAVE holders should have greater authority over name rights, social media accounts, and domains. Deeper conflicts over how much control any one service provider should have over a sizable DeFi protocol were brought to light by the discussion surrounding that proposal.
Due to BGD’s departure, Aave will have to rely more on its current contributors and perhaps bring on new technical providers for tooling maintenance, security coordination, and protocol updates.
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