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- Aave DAO Moves Toward Revenue Centralization and V4 Future
Aave DAO Moves Toward Revenue Centralization and V4 Future
Plus: 🏦 Wall Street banks expand crypto custody and tokenized deposits plans.
Juan Aranovich
March 02, 2026
Hi! In today’s edition:
🗳️ Aave inches toward a sweeping revenue reset
🏦 Big banks double down on crypto while prices sag
🌍 After U.S. strikes Iran, what do investors do now?
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Aave DAO Backs Revenue Overhaul and V4 Roadmap in Narrow Vote
Aave governance participants have signaled support for a sweeping shift in how the protocol operates. The “Aave Will Win” temp check closed Sunday with 52.58% voting in favor, representing about 622,300 YAE votes, while 42% opposed and 5.42% abstained.
The proposal would direct 100% of revenue from Aave Labs products to the DAO treasury, net of partner payouts, and formally position Aave V4 as the protocol’s core technical foundation. Products covered include the Aave App, Aave Card, Aave Pro, Aave Horizon, the main website interface, and a proposed AAVE exchange traded product. The swap feature on aave.com alone generates roughly $10 million in annualized revenue.
V3, which currently produces over $100 million annually, would transition into maintenance mode once V4 matures.
The plan also includes creating a foundation to steward Aave’s trademarks and a funding request of $25 million in stablecoins plus 75,000 AAVE. A formal ARFC proposal incorporating community feedback is expected next.
If you want to learn more about this proposal, check out this interview we did with Aave founder Stani Kulechov.
Wall Street Leans Into Crypto Despite Bear Market Gloom
Wall Street Leans Into Crypto Despite Bear Market Gloom
Prices still feel heavy, but institutions are not backing away from crypto. If anything, they are building deeper rails while the market is down.
Morgan Stanley has filed for a de novo national trust bank charter that would let it custody digital assets and also offer staking and trading to investment clients. The application from Morgan Stanley Digital Trust was filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Feb. 18, a notable step after the bank’s recent moves like hiring Amy Oldenburg to lead its digital asset strategy and signaling plans for a proprietary digital wallet later this year.
Citi is also leaning in. The bank plans to launch institutional bitcoin custody later this year, with leadership framing the goal as making bitcoin fit into bank grade custody, reporting, and tax workflows. Citi has also talked about enabling cross margining so clients can manage crypto alongside securities and cash under one structure.
Meanwhile Barclays is reportedly gathering info for a push into tokenized deposits and stablecoin payments, and JPMorgan has already launched its tokenized deposit token, JPMD, on blockchain networks.
The takeaway: bear market vibes are real, but the infrastructure buildout is accelerating.
What Happens to Markets Now That the U.S. Has Struck Iran?
A former Clinton and Biden foreign policy advisor saw it before it happened. Now the question is what investors do next.
Hours after this episode was recorded, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in what analysts are calling the most significant U.S.-Iran escalation in decades.
Charles Myers, Founder and CEO of Signum Global Advisors and a former senior foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, had just sat down with Steven Ehrlich to discuss the geopolitical landscape and what it means for investors. What he said about Iran during that conversation is now raising serious questions about what comes next, and the investment implications are far from settled.
In this episode, Myers also addresses whether the "sell America" trade is overdone, where oil is heading, the future of AI funding, and whether Bitcoin can actually function as a safe haven when the world is on fire.
Don’t miss Bits + Bips today!
Geopolitics and AI are no longer separate conversations. U.S.–Israel strikes on Iran, oil volatility, and reports of AI models embedded in defense workflows are colliding with crypto market structure in real time.
Today’s back-to-back Bits + Bips sessions start with Rob Hadick on market and policy reactions, then widen to Iran escalation, AI’s defense pivot, layoffs tied to automation, and ETF manipulation claims. If you want a clear frame on how these forces intersect, this is the stream to watch.
Bits + Bips is spreading its wings
Starting soon, new episodes will only be published on our brand‑new feeds.
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🛠️ Vitalik Buterin proposed a sweeping overhaul of Ethereum’s core execution system, advocating for a binary state tree and eventually replacing the current virtual machine to eliminate major performance bottlenecks that limit long-term scalability.
⛓️ Bitcoin developer Martin Habovštiak embedded a 66KB image directly into the Bitcoin blockchain in a single transaction, bypassing common data fields targeted by the proposed BIP-110 anti-spam update and challenging claims that such restrictions would prevent arbitrary file storage.
🎮 Magic Eden is ending support for Bitcoin and Ethereum-based assets to focus exclusively on Solana, abandoning its once-successful multi-chain strategy as it pivots toward gaming and broader crypto trading tools.
🎯 Kalshi will reimburse all fees tied to its “Ali Khamenei out as Supreme Leader?” prediction market, settling pre-death positions at the last traded price and refunding later trades after backlash over whether the contract enabled profits from a real-world death.
⚖️ A group of Senate Democrats urged Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate Binance over potential sanctions violations, citing concerns that intermediaries may have enabled illicit transactions despite the exchange’s prior guilty plea and compliance overhaul.
🧱 MoonPay introduced PYUSDx, a framework that lets developers quickly launch app-specific stablecoins backed by PayPal’s PYUSD, positioning itself as behind-the-scenes infrastructure for fintech and AI builders while expanding PYUSD’s reach beyond PayPal and Venmo without direct integration.
The Financial Infrastructure Layer by Aave Labs CEO Stani Kulechov
DL News: Russian pyramid scheme operators have turned to crypto en masse, warns Moscow