The Curve Wars marked a transformative moment in DeFi, centred around the Curve protocol's governance structure. At its essence, it’s a competitive landscape where various protocols vie for voting power by acquiring Curve’s veCRV (vote-escrowed CRV) tokens. This allows them to direct CRV token rewards to specific liquidity pools, making these pools more attractive to liquidity providers.
This competition for liquidity proved highly effective, benefiting both protocols and liquidity providers, as seen in successful projects like Convex Finance ($330M protocol), and inspiring systems like Astroport's "Astro Tributes," which we are adapting as our own bribe market.
Equinox’s bribe market is a marketplace where any third party can incentivise ECLIP stakers with bribe rewards to vote certain pools with their ECLIP to channel Eclipse vxASTRO voting power towards specific said pools each epoch. (Each epoch is approximately 2 weeks)
By doing so, these votes direct the Eclipse vxASTRO voting power towards chosen liquidity pools, channeling ASTRO emissions to these pools and thus deepening liquidity. This mechanism benefits the ecosystem by directing more rewards to pools with greater strategic value, making them more attractive to liquidity providers who, in turn, enhance the depth and efficiency of these pools.
Voters are able to utilise Equinox to vote for specific pools or delegate their vote to EclipseFi. Voting is simple and intuitive, voters are presented with all the information they need to make effective decisions on which pool they would like to utilise their ECLIP voting power.
Voters are able to easily gauge their potential bribe reward APR on each pool. If voters change their mind, they are allowed at any time prior to the epoch closing to change their votes into any other pool to receive those bribe rewards.
If a voter is unwilling to vote on specific pools—whether due to time constraints or lack of information on projects—they can delegate some or all of their Astro to a delegate pool. In this setup, their staked Astro is automatically distributed to selected pools based on a balanced algorithm, favouring pools with high bribes to maximise rewards. This process will initially be managed manually for the first few epochs, after which an algorithm will be implemented to streamline the allocation.
If ECLIP holders do not participate in the epoch voting period, 80% of the unused voting power will be weighted to the existing votes, with the remaining 20% falling under the DAO. For example, if only 50% of ECLIP holders vote, 80% of the remaining 50% voting power will be distributed in a weighted manner amongst existing voters, making the voters total voting power 90% of the protocols controlled ASTRO with the remaining 10% now in controlling interest of the DAO.
Figure 1: Manual & delegate voting
At the end of each epoch, voters can claim rewards from the pools they supported. These rewards will be accessible both on the voting page and on the staking page, providing flexible options for claiming.