A veToken (vote-escrowed token, pioneered by Curve's veCRV) is what you get for locking a governance token for months or years: more voting power and boosted rewards the longer you lock. Exit early and you forfeit the boost — commitment literally priced in. Why it matters Vote-escrow aligns voters with the protocol's future instead of mercenary farming — and spawned "bribe markets" where protocols pay ve-holders for votes directing emissions their way. Clever mechanism design, but also proof that governance power, once tokenized, gets bought: follow who accumulates the ve-supply and you've found the real bosses. Related terms governance token · DeFi · staking
A veToken (vote-escrowed token, pioneered by Curve’s veCRV) is what you get for locking a governance token for months or years: more voting power and boosted rewards the longer you lock. Exit early and you forfeit the boost — commitment literally priced in.
Why it matters
Vote-escrow aligns voters with the protocol’s future instead of mercenary farming — and spawned “bribe markets” where protocols pay ve-holders for votes directing emissions their way. Clever mechanism design, but also proof that governance power, once tokenized, gets bought: follow who accumulates the ve-supply and you’ve found the real bosses.