Vote bribes (vote markets)

In protocols that use vote-escrow tokenomics, holders of locked tokens vote every epoch on how new emissions are split between liquidity pools. A project that wants deep liquidity for its own token can pay those voters directly: it deposits a reward on a vote market, and every holder who votes for its pool receives a share. In DeFi slang this incentive is simply called a bribe, without any criminal meaning.

Bribing turned emissions into a priced commodity. Platforms such as Votium and Hidden Hand made it routine during the Curve wars, and ve(3,3) DEXs built the mechanism into their core design. Projects compare the cost of each bribe with the emissions it attracts to see whether renting liquidity this way is cheaper than paying farmers directly.

Bribes reward short-term voting rather than long-term alignment, and the liquidity they buy tends to leave when payments stop. Large holders or aggregators can concentrate voting power, and the economics only work while the emitted token keeps its value.