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The ultimate objective of every protocol is to maximise the returns of its community / token holders so they continue to use and support the protocol and not sell their tokens.
In order to not be sold, a token must satisfy the below criteria:
1. Revenue generating potential;
2. Active governance;
3. Utility both inside and outside the protocol
A good example would be Curve's CRV.
1. veCRV holders get revenue in the form of bribes;
2. 50% of total trading fees;
3. Users that stake LP tokens in the gauge get compensated for CRV inflation;
3. CRV can be used as collateral in protocols like C.R.E.A.M, QiDao etc.
Most Protocols have managed to achieve at least 3 out of the 4 but nobody has been able to innovate with something like the bribe feature developed. The bribe feature allows metapool owners to bribe veCRV holders to vote in favour of increasing the gauge weight of the weekly CRV inflation (633127 CRV) towards their metapools. This helps bring more liquidity into their token and helps bootstrap their protocol. The voting closes every thursday at 12:00 am UTC.
Below is an image of the new gauge weights for the period starting 16/09/2021 to 23/09/2021.
Here is the contract that you can check to find out the amount of bribes available to veCRV holders.
0x7893bbb46613d7a4FbcC31Dab4C9b823FfeE1026
Figure 01: Bribe Mechanism
There is about $400k available to the veCRV holders. When compared with the protocol revenue of $162,671 per week available to veCRV holders, the bribe feature has increased the earnings of veCRV holders by ~250%. This has helped decrease sell pressure of CRV as more holders are incentivised to stake their CRV as its earning potential continues to increase.
With about $4.4M dollars to fight for every week, and increased demand for CRV, the bribe wars could reach millions each week. This will incentivise more people to take part in CRV governance and this is definitely a good sign for the future of the protocol.
