Ribbon Finance governance approves Aevo brand merger

The Ribbon Finance brand and its RBN token will transition to the derivatives exchange brand and AEVO token

article-image

SFIO CRACHO/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Ribbon DAO token holders have voted in favor of folding Ribbon Finance into the affiliated Aevo derivatives exchange, which launched its mainnet in June.

Under the proposal, the Ribbon Finance dapp will be moved under the Aevo domain, and Ribbon’s existing structured products will adopt Aevo’s visual identity.

The near-unanimous vote by 133 RBN token holders, which concluded Tuesday, also authorizes a 1:1 token conversion from RBN to a new AEVO token, yet to be launched.

According to the proposal, “Aevo will be converted into a DAO, allowing tokenholders to govern the options and perpetuals exchange, OTC, the existing structured products, and the Aevo L2 rollup itself.”

Blockworks Research analyst Ren Yu Kong called the proposal “a fantastic one for the RBN token and should greatly improve tokenomics, and “shininess” surrounding a new token.”

Ribbon currently runs 16 DeFi options vaults (DOVs) on Ethereum, with a share of revenues directed to RBN token holders who lock their tokens for a fixed period of time, and receive veRBN in return.

But the protocol has struggled to scale, prompting the team to pivot to Aevo, a non-custodial options and perpetual futures exchange built as a layer-2 rollup using the Optimism stack. This uses an off-chain order book familiar to traders on centralized exchanges.

Once enacted, veRBN can unlock their RBN tokens without penalty and migrate them, while vault revenue sharing will be stopped, pending a further proposal on AEVO tokenomics.

The protocol’s developers and investors all agreed to re-vest their own token allocations for an additional year as part of the process.

What’s in a name?

Most governance discussion on the project’s forum and Discord was favorable to the proposal, but some questioned the relative merits of the two brands.

“Aevo will get lost and confused with Aave and others,” wrote one community member on Discord. “Ribbon as a brand clearly stands out.”

The project’s community manager disagreed, calling the Ribbon brand a “limitation,” due to its “heavy baggage” — a reference to problems that emerged following the launch of the RBN token in 2021 after DeFi venture fund Divergence Ventures, a Ribbon investor, was found to have Sybil-attacked the airdrop.

“Ribbon is our history, let us not make it our burden,” the community manager said.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

  • Blockworks Daily: The newsletter that helps thousands of investors understand crypto and the markets, by Byron Gilliam.
  • Empire: Start your morning with the top news and analysis to inform your day in crypto.
  • Forward Guidance: Reporting and analysis on the growing intersection of crypto and macroeconomics, policy and finance.
  • 0xResearch: Alpha directly in your inbox. Market highlights, data, degen trade ideas, governance updates, token performance and more.
  • Lightspeed: Built for Solana investors, developers and community members. The latest from one of crypto’s hottest networks.
  • The Drop: For crypto collectors and traders, covering apps, games, memes and more.
  • Supply Shock: Tracking Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.
Tags

Upcoming Events

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.jpg

Research

Bluefin possibly stands at an inflection point. The token is near an all-time low yet the protocol’s spot volume market share and derivatives exchange usage have been increasing month over month since its November launch. Given its current market position and the upcoming upgrades (for both Bluefin and SUI), there may be upside potential before the increased supply growth in December. However, strong opposition from existing competitors (like Cetus and Suilend), as well as new entrants (like Aftermath), pose key challenges to Bluefin’s medium-term success.

article-image

Top Committee Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren in her opening statement accused Atkins of “helping billionaire CEOs like Sam Bankman-Fried”

article-image

Introducing garbled circuits for enhanced privacy and regulatory compliance

article-image

Ross Ulbricht was a freedom maximalist building freedom tech, powered by Bitcoin

article-image

Solana validators can reap benefits including payments, votes and community clout

article-image

Sponsored

WalletConnect is cementing itself as the essential connectivity layer, ensuring wallets remain the entry point for billions of users

article-image

According to a legal filing, Galaxy Digital helped boost the price of LUNA while quietly selling its tokens