Gauge voting is a mechanism in DeFi protocols such as Curve where token holders allocate weights to liquidity pool gauges, determining how reward emissions are distributed across pools each epoch. Voting power is typically proportional to vote-escrowed (veToken) balances, creating direct economic incentives for bribe markets and liquidity direction.
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- In gauge voting, each liquidity pool is represented by a gauge, and holders of vote-escrowed tokens distribute their voting weight across gauges. The resulting weights set the share of newly minted reward tokens that each pool receives over the following epoch.
- Because emissions translate into yield for liquidity providers, control of gauge weights has direct economic value. This created secondary markets such as Votium and Hidden Hand where protocols pay voters to favour their pools.