Gauge voting

The reference model is Curve. The user locks CRV in the Voting Escrow and gets veCRV, a non-transferable token: the longer the lock, from one week to four years, the more veCRV received. With that veCRV they vote on gauge weights. CRV emissions to each pool are proportional to the veCRV assigned to its gauge and depend on the current inflation rate, the gauge weight and its gauge-type weight. A vote change takes effect at the start of the next weekly epoch, and there is also a rewards boost of up to 2.5x for those who vote-lock.

It is not an EIP but a governance design pattern. The origin is verified: Curve Finance introduced vote-escrowed tokens (veCRV) and gauge voting in September 2020, popularizing the veTokenomics later replicated across DeFi.

It is the centerpiece of the veToken model and the trigger for the so-called liquidity wars (Curve Wars). Directing emissions toward your own pool becomes strategically valuable, which spawned an entire economic layer around control of gauge weight: veCRV accumulation, vote markets and protocols like Convex Finance, whose vlCVX concentrated voting power over Curve's gauges. Balancer adopted the same pattern with veBAL.