Aave DAO Probes CoW Swap Fees

Moody’s Moves to Rate Stablecoins | Pyth Starts Monthly Token Buybacks

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
December 15, 2025

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Good Morning,

Governance questions at Aave, Moody’s entry into stablecoin ratings, and changes to token launches and buybacks all point to a more practical discussion around revenue, incentives, and long term alignment.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: Aave DAO Probes CoW Swap Fees 👻
Product of the Week: Moody’s Moves to Rate Stablecoins 👀
Charts: Fogo Cancels Presale, Pyth Starts Monthly Token Buybacks 📊

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Narratives: Value Accrual Shift

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TOGETHER WITH

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Access is open through Neutrl and Pendle for users looking to deploy stable capital with yield and points upside.

WHAT MATTERS

Aave DAO Probes CoW Swap Fees

State of play: Aave governance members are questioning whether a recent CoW Swap integration has redirected swap fee revenue away from the Aave DAO and toward Aave Labs.

An analysis suggests fees that previously flowed to the DAO under a Paraswap setup may now be sent to a separate address, potentially worth ~$200K/week.
The Aave Chan Initiative called the situation “extremely concerning,” warning it could represent a quiet shift of protocol related revenue away from the DAO.
Concerns also extend to other Aave Labs products, including vaults, Horizon, and the planned v4 liquidation engine.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov responded that Aave Labs is entitled to monetize its own frontend and said earlier revenue sharing was voluntary.
Several questions about fee destinations and revenue sharing remain unresolved.

Why it matters: This shows how messy things can get when a DAO and its core dev team are not fully aligned on revenue. Who captures value at the interface level is becoming a real governance issue, not just a technical one.

Our take: Aave Labs sees frontend monetization as fair game, while the DAO assumed that revenue would flow back to the treasury. That should have been made clear much earlier.

For builders and investors: We should pay attention to how frontend control affects economics.

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Moody’s Moves to Rate Stablecoins by Reserve Quality

Moody’s has proposed a new framework to rate stablecoins based on the quality, liquidity, and risk profile of their reserve assets, rather than treating all 1:1 USD backed tokens as equal.

Under the proposal, two dollar pegged stablecoins could receive different ratings depending on what backs them, such as Treasuries, bank deposits, or other assets.
The framework would assess reserve asset credit quality, market value risk, liquidity, operational and technology risks, and how well reserves are legally segregated from the issuer.
Moody’s has opened the proposal for public feedback, with comments due by Jan. 26, 2026.

Other cool products:

Moralis, a web3 infrastructure to build dApps.
GemPad, a multi-chain decentralized launchpad.
Tymio, a decentralized structured products protocol.
Accumulated Finance, an omnichain modular liquid staking protocol.
Bloom, a decentralized credit scoring powered by Ethereum and IPFS.

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CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Fogo Cancels Presale & Shifts to Airdrop

State of play: Fogo has canceled its planned $20M token presale and will instead airdrop the 2% of FOGO supply that was set aside for the sale.

The decision comes ahead of the project’s Jan. 13 mainnet launch and reflects a shift toward rewarding early users rather than raising capital.
The team said the presale’s original goal was broad distribution, but concluded that an airdrop and points based allocation would better serve that purpose.
Fogo recently released its tokenomics, showing 38.98% of tokens unlocked at launch, with allocations for core contributors, institutional investors, advisors, and community participants.
Early testnet users, points farmers, and users who bridged USDC before a snapshot will be eligible through the Fogo Flames points program.
The Layer 1, built on the Solana Virtual Machine, says the strategy change will not affect its mainnet rollout.

Our take: In the current market, a $1B FDV presale would have been hard to justify and risked souring sentiment before launch.

Pyth Starts Monthly Token Buybacks

Pyth’s Price Chart

State of play: Pyth Network has launched a token buyback program that allocates 33% of its DAO treasury each month to purchase PYTH on the open market.

PYTH Reserve is funded by network revenue and begins this month, with the first buyback expected to range between $100,000 and $200,000.
The move comes as Pyth reports rising revenue, driven mainly by its new Pyth Pro data product, which surpassed $1M in ARR within its first month.
Pyth aims to scale revenue significantly and says the buyback program is designed to tie PYTH more closely to network usage and long-term value accrual.
Buybacks will be executed monthly, fully onchain, with purchased tokens held in reserve rather than immediately returned to circulation.

Our take: Pyth is not promising buybacks off hype, but funding them with real revenue. If growth continues, this makes PYTH feel more like a productive asset than a passive governance token.

QUICK BITES

Exor rejects Tether's $1.3B bid to acquire Juventus.
South Korean regulator misses stablecoin bill deadline.
Fogo cancels $20M pre-sale, will airdrop tokens instead.
UK aims to regulate crypto like financial products by 2027.
Michael Saylor hints at next Bitcoin buy as BTC falls below $88K.
Firestorm erupts in Aave governance forum over CoW Swap fees.
Brazil's largest bank recommends a 3% Bitcoin portfolio allocation.
Strategy survives first Nasdaq 100 shakeup since entering the index.
StanChar, Coinbase deepen alliance to build institutional crypto infra.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

espir.hl’s read on Hyperliquid Growth Situation.
0xJeff’s read on Evolution of Crypto x AI in 2025.
Joel John’s read on Most used chain based on what?

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