Bribery (vote bribery)
vote bribesbribes
Payments to vote-escrowed token holders to direct emissions toward a chosen pool — a structural revenue stream in Curve / Balancer ecosystems.
Markets like Votium and Hidden Hand let protocols bid for voter attention. Bribery is legal, on-chain, and arguably more efficient than emissions distribution by gauge popularity alone — but it concentrates governance power among bribery counterparties and aggregators.
Related terms
- Vote-escrow (ve-token)A token-locking model where governance power and emissions weight scale with lock duration.
- GaugeA Curve mechanism that directs CRV emissions to a chosen pool, with weights set by veCRV votes.
- CurveThe largest stablecoin-focused AMM, optimised for low-slippage swaps between like-kind assets.