Gauntlet Will End Contract With AAVE DAO

Aave, the popular decentralized lending platform belonging to the company now known as Avara, will have to look for a new company to provide risk management services following its recently announced split with Gauntlet.

The decision was announced by Gauntlet co-founder John Morrow on the AAVE forums yesterday evening.

Running The Gauntlet

According to Morrow, the relationship between his company and the Aave DAO that oversees the protocol has become strained due to inconsistent guidelines and unwritten requests and objectives by the largest DAO stakeholders. Gauntlet has already started looking for companies that can replace their services and has stated that they are open to working together with Aave/Avara again in the future.

With that being said, current circumstances have led Gauntlet to the decision to part ways.

“We’re proud of our work […]. Almost everyone on our 60-person team has contributed to Aave or worked on the infrastructure supporting it. It is because of all this that it pains us to say that Gauntlet is no longer able to continue our work with Aave. We will be terminating our payment stream as soon as possible and working with other contributors to find a replacement for the Risk Steward.”

Morrow cited incidents such as the AIP-371 fiasco and Chaos on Optimism as some of the catalysts for the decision. He also mentioned certain actions his company took for other platforms, which Aave DAO stakeholders allegedly regarded as “moonlighting for direct competition.”

AAVE Representatives Respond

Former Aave Labs CTO, current community member, and DeFi developer Ernesto Boado and Aave DAO service provider Marc Zeller responded to the post, giving their own insights on the situation.

Both opposed the idea that the AAVE community had mistreated Gauntlet. Although Boado was more reserved in his criticism, Zeller took the opportunity to lambast Gauntlet over their reading of events.

“Gauntlet is a 1B company […] there’s zero serious unicorn and zero company board in this world that would let the team quit their most prestigious client […] if there’s not more profitable and strategic alternative. “Marc has not been nice to us” is a poor excuse to justify Gauntlet looking into external business opportunities. “we left because we were treated unfairly” was likely deemed a better alternative than exposing itself to be seen as mercenary.”

Zeller also stated that due to these events, the ACI he leads is looking for someone to fill a very prestigious niche with a budget of $1.6 million and is waiting for candidates.