Authors: pdbeat, RNC
In order to contribute to Curve Governance, users need to own veCRV, which stands for vote escrowed CRV.
1 veCRV = 1 vote
veCRV can be obtained by locking CRV. By doing so, participants can earn a boost on their provided liquidity on top of voting power on all DAO proposals.
Depending on how long a CRV is locked, user will have different voting power (i.e. veCRV) following the table below
As you can see, users with long voting escrow have more stake and therefore more voting power.
veCRV stands for vote escrowed CRV, it's a locker where users can lock their CRV for different lengths of time to gain voting power. Users can lock their CRV for a minimum of week and a maximum of four years.
One of the most important aspect of voting is to decide which pools should receive the CRV as reward for liquidity providers on the Curve protocol.
To give some perspective as the time of righting, around 750,000 CRV ($3.5M) are distributed daily to liquidity providers on the Curve protocol.
The following pie chart shows which liquidity gauge receive the most CRV.
Because those weights decide where the CRV inflation goes, it allows the DAO to control where most of the liquidity should go and balance liquidity.
This means that currently $MIM liquidity providers are receiving the highest CRV rewards, which is a great incentive for liquidity providers to holder $MIM and join Curve's pool.
Just because a pool has a larger weight doesn't mean it will have a higher APY. The CRV allocated to a gauge is shared between all the liquidity providers in it.
However, it's undeniable that abracadabra.money ($MIM's protocol) is benefitting hugely by this larger weight.
As protocols understood the importance of getting the fattest slice of the gauge pie in order to pump their own rewards, the Curve Wars emerged.
The Curve War has its own form of mercenaries, veCRV holders who vote based on CRV bribes. CRV bribes (via bribe.crv.finance) allow protocols to issue rewards to veCRV holders that vote for their pool.