The Aave Companies proposed a budget of $550,000 in GHO for the remainder of 2023 to support various initiatives aimed at growing and nurturing the global Aave Community. These initiatives include sponsoring hackathons, hosting side events, creating merchandise, developing the GHO Pass, and hosting rAAVE events. The budget also covers future activations such as participation in ETH Global Istanbul, hosting rAAVE, and Devconnect + Side Events.

However, the proposal sparked a lively discussion among community members. MrKris and Hazbobo questioned the necessity of such a large budget and called for a detailed breakdown of expenses. G-Blockchain expressed concerns about ensuring the budget is used solely for Aave-related activities and not diverted to Lens activities. They also asked about the GHO Pass and whether its proceeds would be directed back to the DAO. 0xkeyrock.eth provided some clarity on the costs of conference sponsoring, stating that the proposed budget is not excessive considering the scale of rAAVE and the fact that any excess budget will be used in Q1 2024. MoolySagiv and Jengajojo supported the proposal but suggested focusing more on sponsorships, hackathons, and side events rather than high-quality merchandise.

In response to these concerns, AaveCompanies clarified that the proposed budget is in line with previous spending for similar events and covers three major events and a side event around DevConnect. They also emphasized the importance of maintaining strong community support and engagement despite Aave's success in DeFi. They confirmed that any proceeds from the GHO pass would go back directly into the budget for future activities that support the protocol and GHO. They also assured that they have a robust tracking system for all AGD-related expenditures and that they ensure that the budget from this proposal will be used only for specific, community-approved, Aave-related endeavors.

The Snapshot for this proposal was announced to be live for voting until Oct 8, 2023. The discussion concluded with Michigan_Blockchain suggesting that if competitive reasons prevent the disclosure of the budget, a high-level spending breakdown could be provided at the end of the year for accountability and transparency.