Why Vote Locker Gauges Matter Now
DAO governance is hitting a wall. Token incentives are often short-term. Governance tokens are increasingly disconnected from value. And voter participation is shallow. In response, new designs like vote-escrow (VE) lockers and gauge systems, pioneered by Curve and now spreading across DeFi, are reimagining how DAOs align capital with long-term commitment.
In this edition of StableLab's Interview Series, we sat down with Ivan Fartunov; Tokenomics Lead at Aragon and one of the key designers behind its governance gauge infrastructure to break down the mechanics, applications, and future of VE lockers and gauges.
From protocol-level incentives to the evolving role of delegates, this conversation offers a comprehensive look at how VE mechanics are shaping the next generation of DAO design.
Meet the Guest: Ivan Fartunov
Ivan Fartunov is currently leading tokenomics at Aragon, where he focuses on value accrual, infrastructure monetization, and governance gauges.
He previously helped shape DeFi strategy at kpk, supporting protocols like Safe and dYdX. Beyond his core roles, Ivan is also a founding member of Hydra Ventures DAO and an active contributor to governance design discussions across more than 10 DAOs.
His work centers on embedding long-term economic alignment into protocol mechanics especially through vote-locking, incentive gauges, and modular governance infrastructure.
The Foundation: Ivan's Presentation on Vote Locker Gauges
Ivan kicked off the session by tracing the history of token utility:
2013: Tokens as money.
2017: Tokens as utility/payment.
2019: Tokens as governance.
2024: Memecoins dominate, exposing governance token weaknesses.
This led to his core thesis: if governance tokens aren’t credibly tied to value, they risk becoming meaningless. VE lockers, by requiring users to lock tokens for voting rights, force long-term alignment.
He explained the design of VE lockers as used in Curve (veCRV) and Balancer (veBAL) with innovations including:
Minimum lock durations.
Optional NFT transferability.
Time-weighted voting multipliers.
Exit cooldowns with dynamic early-exit penalties (e.g. 50% exit tax, decreasing over time).
Locking reduces circulating supply, but scarcity alone isn’t enough. As Ivan put it:
"Scarcity doesn’t create value. You need the token to represent something worth committing to."
Gauges complement lockers by letting voters express preferences across resource categories (e.g., emissions, core ops, validator rewards), enabling structured pluralism in governance.
Diagram: A visual overview of the VE locker model, where locking tokens grants voting rights across protocol parameters, upgrades, and incentive gauges.
Highlights from the Q&A
Following Ivan’s walkthrough of the historical context and technical design of vote locker gauges, the conversation opened up to a rich Q&A session with delegates and researchers from the StableLab team.
What emerged was a clear picture: VE mechanics are powerful not just for emissions control but for reshaping how decisions and capital flow in DAOs.
Mel.eth: How do VE lockers fix misaligned incentives?
Ivan: One of the most common problems in governance is that token holders don’t necessarily care about the long-term consequences of their decisions. VE lockers introduce friction, they require commitment. You lock your tokens, which means you can’t immediately dump them or walk away. That commitment creates alignment. If you’re locked in, your voting behavior is likely to be more thoughtful. It turns passive holders into more deliberate participants, shifting the weight toward long-term contributors rather than short-term speculators.
Doo Wan Nam: What parameters are key in designing VE systems?Ivan: It’s a rich design space. At minimum, you want to set a meaningful lock duration, otherwise users can game the system. Then there’s the exit tax, which penalizes premature withdrawals and discourages churn. Voting power multipliers based on lock time are optional but powerful: they reward deeper commitment. Some teams skip them, making it more like staking with warm-up and cooldown periods. The system can be strict or flexible, but the goal is always the same: to calibrate incentives for sustained engagement.
Matthew Stein: Why pair gauges with VE lockers?
Ivan: Gauges transform voter intent into budget allocations. Instead of voting on individual proposals one by one, token holders vote across predefined budget categories like growth incentives, validator rewards, or treasury buybacks. This creates a more manageable, pluralistic governance model. Voters allocate resources by weight, and because they're locked, their preferences reflect deeper conviction. Gauges also improve capital efficiency and reduce governance overhead by batching decisions into structured flows.
Kenechukwu Eze: What about sticky voting and delegation?Ivan: Sticky voting lowers cognitive load. Once you vote on a gauge, your preference stays until you change it, no need to revote every cycle. Delegation builds on this by letting users hand off their voting power to others they trust. But tooling matters: you need to ensure that delegates are easy to rotate, revoke, and manage securely. We're rolling out delegation features now, and wallet safety is a top concern.
Nneoma Chima-Kanu: How does this compare to DYDX’s model?
Ivan: DYDX uses a more traditional model where token holders vote on discrete proposals. It works, but it’s less expressive. There’s no time-weighted conviction, no gauge granularity, and minority opinions can be entirely overridden. VE systems let even a small voter base direct a proportional share of resources so every vote has weight, even if it’s not part of the majority.
Raphael Spannocchi: You mentioned token-curated UX, can you expand?
Ivan: Sure. Imagine if your DeFi wallet's homepage only featured projects that earned enough veVotes. That real estate that users see first is valuable. Instead of static listings, we can use gauges to curate interfaces. It becomes a new kind of attention economy: you don’t just pay to be seen, you need people to commit to showing you. It aligns visibility with governance.
Jose Martinez: How do VE models impact delegates?
Ivan: They increase the demand for expertise. In many systems, delegates just vote “yes” or “no.” With VE + gauges, delegates may need to set budget weights, define KPIs for distribution, or optimize economic flows. It’s lower frequency but higher impact work. It turns delegation into a craft, especially when gauges affect emissions, liquidity, or validator incentives. You’re not just voting, you’re shaping capital strategy.
Mel.eth: What does the VE delegation teach us about restaking?
Ivan: It’s all about layered preferences. In restaking, you allocate the same base resource, your stake, across different services. With gauges, you can do something similar in governance: apply voting power across distinct domains. We’re starting to see models where voting power becomes slashable or reputation-based, especially if someone uses it to endorse a faulty implementation. That brings new dynamics to delegation and responsibility.
Kaf: Can gauges work outside EVM chains?
Ivan: Technically, yes. But most non-EVM chains lack native infra for gauges, so they depend on off-chain tools like Snapshot. As tooling matures, we’ll see broader adoption—but for now, EVM is where most of the experimentation happens.
On monetization: Ivan highlighted three promising areas for protocol revenue:
Exit penalties: Early withdrawals can be taxed, with proceeds redistributed to loyal lockers.
Automation relayers: Users can pay fees to auto-vote for the best incentives or compound rewards.
Gauge distribution fees: Protocols can charge a small cut from assets flowing through the gauge.
Together, these mechanisms open up new business models for governance infrastructure, without compromising decentralization.
Takeaways: What This Means for DAOs
Ivan’s insights make it clear: vote lockers and gauges are more than technical primitives. They are tools that, when well designed, can significantly improve how DAOs allocate capital, align incentives, and manage complexity.
Commitment matters — VE lockers reward long-term alignment by giving more weight to those who lock tokens over time.
Gauges enable flexible budgeting — Instead of binary votes, token holders allocate resources across categories, improving capital distribution.
Delegates evolve — Delegation becomes about designing budgets and metrics, not just voting yes/no.
Utility drives adoption — Locking only works if the token is tied to meaningful control or value.
Tooling is catching up — Auto-voting, sticky preferences, and interface curation are making governance more usable and expressive.
These mechanics won’t fix every DAO overnight but they offer one clear path to more resilient governance. As more protocols explore VE systems, the design choices made today will shape the power dynamics of tomorrow.
📚 For Those Interested in Learning More
🎥 Watch: Aragon: Building a Hyperstructure for DAO Governance
In this episode of StablePod, we sat down with Leuts, CEO of Aragon, to explore the evolution of its governance stack and the vision for Aragon as a hyperstructure.
🔜 Coming Up Next
In our next Interview Series, we sit down with 0xJustice to explore q/acc; a novel approach to grants and incentive design that challenges traditional DAO funding structures.
We’ll unpack how quadratic mechanisms, conditionality, and contributor agency are shaping a new paradigm for onchain capital allocation.
Don’t miss it.
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