DAO Disagreements Show Governance Health
Dr. Michael Egorov, the founder behind Curve Finance, thinks disagreements within decentralized autonomous organizations are actually a good thing. He told Cointelegraph that when DAO members argue about proposals, it shows the system is working as intended.
Egorov pointed to two recent examples. First, there was the December 2025 Curve DAO proposal about a $6.3 million grant for Swiss Stake AG, the main developer behind Curve Finance. That proposal faced significant pushback from members. But then something interesting happened.
Revised Proposal Gets High Turnout
The proposal was revised and resubmitted in December 2025. This time, it received over 80% turnout from DAO members. That’s pretty remarkable when you consider what LamprosTech found last year—most DAOs rarely see voter turnout above 15%. Decision-making power usually ends up concentrated in a small, active group.
Egorov thinks Curve’s system encourages better participation. Token holders lock up their tokens for long periods, which seems to create more long-term engagement with governance. It’s not just about quick profits.
Aave Dispute Shows Governance Challenges
The second example Egorov mentioned involves Aave. In December 2025, a governance dispute erupted between Aave Labs and the Aave DAO. The issue was about fees from an integration with CoW Swap, a DeFi exchange aggregator.
DAO members weren’t happy that fees were going directly to a wallet controlled by Aave Labs. This sparked a bigger debate about who really controls intellectual property on DeFi platforms. A proposal was submitted to bring Aave’s brand assets and IP under DAO control, but it ultimately failed.
Legal Recognition Could Help
Egorov sees DAOs as a new model for human organization. They’re not exactly companies, and they’re not exactly sovereign countries, but they have elements of both. Political parties within DAOs voice disagreements about how to govern protocols, much like in traditional politics.
But there’s a practical problem. DAOs can’t interact with the real world without regulated legal structures—things like business entities or bank accounts. Control over intellectual property is a common governance issue because of this limitation.
Egorov thinks DAOs work well for governing onchain elements. For offchain structures, centralized companies might still be a better fit. But if DAOs could be legally recognized—if they could own business entities and bank accounts—it might help mitigate some of these governance disputes.
The legal system just hasn’t caught up with the technology yet. That’s perhaps the biggest challenge facing DAOs right now. They represent a new way of organizing, but they’re operating in a legal framework designed for older models.
What’s interesting to me is how these disagreements actually strengthen the system. When proposals get pushback, they get revised. When members care enough to argue, they also care enough to vote. The high turnout for Curve’s revised proposal suggests that engagement follows controversy.
It’s not perfect, of course. The Aave situation shows that some disputes don’t get resolved cleanly. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe the point isn’t to eliminate disagreement, but to create systems where disagreement leads to better outcomes.
Egorov’s perspective feels grounded in experience. He’s seen proposals fail and succeed. He’s watched DAOs evolve. His view that disagreements are healthy makes sense when you look at how traditional organizations work too. Companies with no internal debate often make poor decisions.
The legal recognition piece is crucial though. Until DAOs can operate more easily in the traditional financial world, they’ll keep running into these same governance challenges. The technology is there, but the legal framework needs to catch up.
