CoW DAO Project Update

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Biggest Stories of 2025

• Whitelisting "Generalized Wrappers" as Solvers (CIP 81): The DAO authorized the "Generalized Wrapper" architecture as a recognized protocol extension, permitting the Core Team Multisig to whitelist an initial set of wrappers for a pilot with Euler Finance, exempt from the standard solver bond requirement. This expands how external infrastructure can plug into the protocol while imposing slashing rules for non-compliance. (December 23, 2025) 1
• Dissolving the Sprinter Bonding Pool (CIP 78): The community passed a proposal to dissolve the bonding pool tied to the solver Sprinter, which is temporarily halting solver operations, returning 500,000 USDC and 1.5 million COW to the original deposit addresses. This reflects routine housekeeping as solver participation changes. (December 19, 2025) 2
• Continued Funding for Development Services (CIP 79): The DAO earmarked 12,600,000 USDC from the treasury to fund operations for calendar year 2026, allocated quarterly across four legal entities. This secures the operational runway for the coming year. (December 19, 2025) 3
• Renewing the CoW Team Grant Allocation with Performance-Linked Milestones (CIP 83): A forum discussion began on replenishing the CoW Team Grant Allocation with 50 million COW (5% of total supply) via a four-year streaming allocation, and authorizing up to $15 million in stablecoins to buy back COW on the open market. This followed the rejection of CIP 76 and aims to tie incentives to buybacks rather than internal reallocations. (December 15, 2025) 4
• Aave Community Probes CoW Swap Integration: An Aave delegate alleged that the CoW Swap integration on Aave interfaces diverted potential swap fee revenue to an Aave Labs-controlled address, with onchain analysis suggesting the fee stream could be worth at least $200,000 per week since Q2 2025. The dispute highlighted governance tensions around fee flows and frontend monetization. (December 12, 2025) 5
• Disabling the oSnap Module Due to UMA Deprecation (CIP 77): The DAO approved disabling the UMA oSnap module attached to its main Safe, following UMA's announcement that it would fully deprecate oSnap on December 15, 2025. This was a necessary governance infrastructure migration. (December 11, 2025) 6
• Rejection of Continued Funding for Development Services (CIP 76): The DAO rejected a proposal to earmark 13.8 million USDC for 2026 operations and top up the CoW Team Grant Allocation Committee with 100 million COW, with top "Against" voters preferring that funding and incentives be presented separately and tied to KPIs. This signaled a push for greater accountability in treasury spending. (December 9, 2025) 7
• Aave x CoW Swap: Swap Adaptor Integration: Aave Labs and the CoW Swap team announced a strategic partnership integrating Aave's swap adaptor framework into CoW Protocol's solver architecture, enabling flash loans to run inside intent-based transactions so solvers can borrow, swap, and repay in a single atomic flow. This gives Aave users better pricing, deeper liquidity, and MEV protection. (December 4, 2025) 8
• CoW Swap x NEAR Intents: CoW DAO announced an integration of NEAR Intents as a core cross-chain provider, routing cross-chain swaps through NEAR Protocol's intent system as a single, gasless atomic flow. Phase 1 went live, with Phase 2 planned to enable a two-way, intent-to-intent system. (December 2, 2025) 9
• Partner Incentive Alignment (CIP 75): The DAO approved amendments to CIP 61 granting integrators a direct, capped share of Price Improvement and greater flexibility to monetize flows, raising the maximum aggregate partner revenue share from 1% to 5% and reducing the DAO's default volume-based revenue share to 25%. A six-month experimentation mandate began December 1, 2025. (November 26, 2025) 10
• Sale of CoW DAO's Stake in MEV Blocker (CIP 73): Voting concluded with 99.68% in favor of authorizing the CoW Foundation to market, negotiate, and sell CoW DAO's 50% stake in MEV Blocker, with net proceeds remitted to the DAO Treasury. This marked a strategic divestment from the MEV Blocker product. (November 5, 2025) 11
• CoW SDK v7: CoW DAO released v7 of the CoW SDK, migrating the codebase from Ethers v5 to Viem, adding support for EIP-2612 and EIP-7702, and reducing bundle size by 32% (from 1,447kb to 981kb). The update supports nine networks and maintains backward compatibility. (September 22, 2025) 12
• Increase in COW Token Buybacks: The CoW Treasury Team added a buyback target of 1.2x weekly COW emissions to ensure continued net negative emissions, building on CIP 38's automatic conversion of protocol fees to COW. This reinforced the token's deflationary mechanism. (August 26, 2025) 13
• Appointment of Leeward Supervisors as Supervisor of the CoW Foundation (CIP 71): Voting concluded with 100% in favor of nominating Leeward Supervisors Limited as the sole supervisor of the CoW Foundation. This filled a key oversight role within the DAO's legal structure. (August 6, 2025) 14
• Operational CoW DAO Safe Renewal 2 (CIP 70): The DAO approved transferring 50 ETH from the Treasury to the Ops Safe to replenish funds for gas costs, testing, audits, bounties, and user studies, and reorganized the Safe's signers under a 2/3 multisig. This ensured continued operational funding. (July 29, 2025) 15
• Fair Combinatorial Batch Auctions Go Live: The CoW Protocol team announced that the Fair Combinatorial Batch Auctions mechanism was now live, following CIP 67's approval. The upgrade was expected to increase order throughput by ~33% and solver competition rewards by ~25%. (June 20, 2025) 16
• Distributing COW Rewards on Mainnet for All Chains (CIP 68): Voting began on a proposal to standardize all COW reward disbursements to Ethereum mainnet regardless of the chain where they are earned, reducing fragmentation and bridging risks. Implementation was scheduled to begin with the accounting week of June 24–31, 2025. (June 11, 2025) 17
• Upgrade to Fair Combinatorial Auction Mechanism (CIP 67): Following approval, CoW Protocol's auction mechanism was changed from the Batch Auction to the Fair Combinatorial Auction, allowing solvers to bid on individual trades and combinations of trades while guaranteeing each trader an outcome at least as favorable as their individual auction. Testing began around May 20, with full production expected June 3, 2025. (May 15, 2025) 18
• Incorporation of Legal Structures and Enhanced Risk Management (CIP 64): Voting concluded with 100% in favor of implementing a multi-entity legal structure including a Cayman Islands Foundation and three BVI companies (CoW Core, CoW Hosting, CoW Business) to manage tax, regulatory, and operational risks. This enhanced the DAO's ability to engage institutional partners. (March 15, 2025) 19
• CoW DAO Delegate Program: The team announced the launch of a delegate program enabling users to delegate COW tokens without a lockup, with recognized delegates requiring vetting by the GrantsDAO committee and a minimum 10,000 COW self-allocation. This aimed to broaden governance participation. (February 5, 2025) 20
• Core Treasury Team Mandate and Funding (CIP 62): Voting began on a proposal to consolidate the Core Treasury Team's mandates and allocate 80 million COW tokens to support liquidity provisioning, treasury growth, and product development from 2025 to 2028. The allocation covered product development, solver rewards, strategic partnerships, and other initiatives. (January 29, 2025) 21