AAVE · a fixed coin, a paused buyback, and one reserve that explains everything.

The 16M supply is fixed and fully minted, so nothing is created. New AAVE reaches the market only when the DAO reserve pays staking rewards: it released 19.25K over 90 days and holds 574.9K left. Governance keeps the rate at 150 a day, which is 13.5K for the next 90 days.

There is no vesting. Every AAVE was created in one step during the 2020 token migration, and no lockup, cliff or release calendar exists to unlock from.

No public evidence of release in window — monitored. Watched: the DAO reserve at 574.9K, the buyback holding of 240.5K in the finance committee safe, and the DAO treasury position of 6.6K. Only the reserve sits outside the tradable count; the other two are already inside it, so selling them would hit the market without moving the supply figure at all.

No bankruptcy estate, trustee schedule or court-ordered distribution holds AAVE. There is nothing in this category to release.

The buyback has been switched off since Apr 19 2026 and no restart has been voted. Coverage widely reports it running near 292 a day since late June, but a sweep of every AAVE transfer in the window finds no wallet anywhere buying day after day, and the reserve it is meant to fill received nothing at all. The 240.5K already held was moved there from the DAO's own pockets, not bought.

AAVE has no burn of any kind. Total supply read exactly 16M at both ends of the window and the dead address held the same 0.27 AAVE throughout — neither surface moved, so nothing was destroyed.

No separate treasury bid exists. The DAO treasury's own AAVE position fell to zero over the window as it was moved to the finance committee, which is an internal transfer rather than a purchase.

The safety module took in a real 365.1K net over 90 days and now holds 2.48M AAVE, but leaving it takes only a 2-day notice and a 2-day window, and staked AAVE is already counted as tradable. That is custody, not a lock, so it is watched rather than counted.