Aave Governance Dispute and Bitcoin Market Update on December 22, 2025
Aave governance is currently engaged in a debate over control of brand assets such as domains and social media accounts, which are presently managed by third parties. Ernesto Boado of BGD Labs argues that AAVE holders should own these brand assets to avoid unilateral control by others and criticizes the pace at which the proposal was moved to a vote. Meanwhile, Stani Kulechov, the founder of Aave, maintains that the governance process for the proposal was legitimate and complied with governance norms.
Boado's proposal emphasizes that ownership of brand assets is central to the decentralized autonomous organization's identity while allowing Aave Labs to continue developing products. The proposal seeks for the DAO to own its core identity and access points, setting enforceable terms on how these assets can be used, including permissions for third parties. The dispute has impacted the market, leading to an approximately 11% drop in the AAVE token over the past 24 hours. The vote was held via Snapshot after several days of discussion; however, Boado alleges the process was rushed and lacked proper notice, claims Kulechov disputes. This situation underscores a broader tension in decentralized finance (DeFi) about whether DAOs can effectively own on-chain contracts while branding and interfaces largely remain off-chain and opaque to governance.
In the broader cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin is trading around $89,800 as of December 22, 2025, marking a rise of over 1% and positioning near the top of an $85,000 to $90,000 week-long range. A key resistance level for bulls lies in the overhead supply zone between $92,000 and $95,000. The week includes important U.S. economic data releases such as Q3 GDP, consumer confidence, and jobless claims, while year-end liquidity is expected to be thin, potentially causing erratic price movements. On Friday, approximately $27 billion in BTC and ETH options will expire on Deribit, with a bullish positioning as call options outweigh put options by roughly three to one.
Analysts, including Alex Kuptsikevich of FxPro, caution that short-term momentum may be misleading given Bitcoin is about 30% below its peak, having started the year near $93,400 according to CoinDesk data. In the past 24 hours, some altcoins such as HYPE, KAS, SKY, and NIGHT have gained between 4% and 6%, while XRP, ETH, and SOL showed mixed performance. Uniswap (UNI) declined by over 1% amid a protocol-fee switch vote which appears to have broad support.
In the broader financial markets, gold prices reached a record near $4,420, while the dollar index slipped to around 98.48 as longer-dated Japanese yields rose, reflecting shifting market risk sentiment and macroeconomic concerns. Bitcoin's technical indicators show a breakout from a mini-descending channel and a recovery of the November 21 rising trendline. A decisive move above the $92,000–$95,000 supply zone would reinforce a bullish outlook.
Key on-chain and market metrics report Bitcoin dominance at approximately 59.8%, an Ether/BTC ratio near 0.03388, a network hashrate of about 1,045 EH/s, a hashprice of roughly $38.24, total Bitcoin transaction fees amounting to 1.88 BTC (around $165,900), and CME open interest at approximately 119,605 BTC.
In governance updates from other projects, BNB Chain is voting to reduce consecutive validator blocks from 16 to 8 to reduce the risk of large chain reorganizations. Axie Infinity is voting on staking idle Community Treasury assets. Moonwell DAO is voting to switch its rETH oracle and utilize its reserves to cover bad debt. CoW DAO is voting to renew its grants for 2026. Several votes are set to conclude by December 22.
With the holiday season approaching, the expiration of significant Bitcoin and Ether options on Deribit adds further dynamics to market positioning and investor sentiment.
