Ve33: a token-governed liquidity marketplace on Ekubo Core

Chains, protocols, launchpads, and other ecosystems often need liquidity across a set of related markets. A chain may want more trading among its native assets, a protocol may want to establish a new market category on its venue, and a launchpad may want to provide greater risk-adjusted rewards to LPs supporting selected tokens.

Ve33 enables an ecosystem to coordinate that effort around a stake token. Holders lock the token, decide which pools receive emissions, and set the fees for those pools. The voters earn the trading fees generated by the pools they support, giving them a direct financial stake in how rewards are allocated.

Ve33 is an extension on Ekubo Core that anyone can deploy around a token of their choice, including existing tokens. Each ecosystem determines its own emission policy, and anyone can add to the emissions schedule via the extension. The chosen token becomes both the asset people lock for voting power and the reward earned by liquidity providers. Projects seeking liquidity within the ecosystem can acquire voting power or offer external incentives to the voters who direct it.

Fees accrue with each trade, and liquidity providers accrue their share of emissions over time. Every swap uses Ekubo Core, along with its hardened concentrated-liquidity math, stableswap support, singleton accounting, and existing integration surface.

The modified economic arrangement gives each participant a role. LPs supply capital, voters allocate the emission budget, traders generate fees, and projects compete for liquidity. Each group can pursue its own return while contributing to a market that becomes more useful as it grows.

With Ve33, Ekubo is bringing this model to any token through a permissionless, ownerless extension built on Ekubo Core.

That design draws on several generations of prior work.

From vote escrow to liquidity marketplaces

Curve introduced the vote-escrow model in 2020. CRV holders lock tokens for as long as four years and receive time-weighted veCRV voting power. They can use that power to vote on gauges, which determine how CRV emissions are allocated among pools. Curve’s documentation covers the linear voting-power model and gauge-weight voting.

Solidly extended the model in 2022. Its main additions were:

• transferable NFT positions for token locks
• protocol-token emissions paid to LPs
• voter control over the pools receiving those emissions
• pool-specific trading fees paid to the voters supporting each pool
• anti-dilutive rebases for locked token holders

Solidly’s main alignment change was the connection between emissions and pool fees. Andre Cronje referred to this feedback loop as “Ouroboros”: a voter directs emissions toward a pool; those emissions can attract liquidity; deeper liquidity can improve execution; better execution can attract volume; and the resulting fees return to that pool’s voters. A voter’s fee income therefore reflects the trading activity behind the pools they support. This history and mechanism are covered in a detailed retrospective on Solidly and Velodrome.

Solidly’s first deployment also exposed weaknesses in its implementation and launch design. Permissionless gauge creation and an aggressive emission schedule attracted pools built mainly to farm SOLID. When Cronje announced his departure from DeFi, SOLID fell as much as 75% that day, according to CoinDesk.

Velodrome later refined the design for Optimism, and Aerodrome adapted it for Base. The model has since supported substantial activity. As of July 15, 2026, DeFiLlama reports approximately $405 billion in cumulative Aerodrome trading volume, $525 million in cumulative fees, and $462 million in cumulative token-holder revenue. Velodrome’s dashboard reports approximately $42 billion in cumulative volume.

Those deployments show sustained demand for voter-directed liquidity incentives. They also show why emission cost, token performance, vote concentration, and the quality of subsidized liquidity all deserve attention.

Dromos describes the mature form of this model as a MetaDEX: a DEX economy where the token manages and distributes the value produced by traders, LPs, voters, token issuers, and contributors. Its essays on DEX economics and token design are useful background for understanding why the voting market matters as much as the AMM.

Ve33 brings that economic structure to Ekubo Core. Its pool accounting runs continuously, and its voters choose the fee charged by each pool. That fee-setting role is specific to Ve33 and adds a new variable to the allocation decision.

How Ve33 works

The Ve33 extension has one immutable stake token. It is also the reward token paid to LPs.

Holders can lock it for up to four years. Voting power follows a linear formula:

voting power = stake amount × time remaining / 4 years

The VeToken wrapper represents a locked stake as a transferable ERC-721. Stake owners can add tokens, extend the end date, split one position into several positions, or merge positions.

A stake can assign all of its recorded voting power to one pool. Splitting a stake allows its owner to support several pools.

A vote specifies two things:

• the pool that should receive a share of global LP emissions
• the swap fee that the pool should charge

Ve33 calculates the active pool fee as the voting-power-weighted average of all fee votes:

pool fee = Σ(vote weight × selected fee) / Σ(vote weight)

A pool with zero active vote weight charges a zero extension fee.

This gives voters influence over both sides of the pool’s economics. Their votes affect the amount paid to LPs and the amount charged to traders. A highly correlated pair may support a low fee because its flow is sensitive to execution quality. Another market may support a higher fee because it carries more inventory risk or faces less direct competition.

Swap fees go to the voters supporting the pool, in proportion to their recorded vote weight. LPs receive the stake token from the global emission stream, in proportion to the pool’s vote weight and their active liquidity.

LP rewards account for the position’s range. Concentrated liquidity earns while it is active at the current price. When a swap crosses initialized ticks, Ve33 updates reward growth using the same inside/outside accounting pattern used for Core fees. Stableswap positions use global pool reward growth.

From fixed campaigns to a responsive liquidity market

Ekubo has previously run liquidity programs that paid a fixed amount per day to a predefined set of pools for three months. The budget and duration are easy to understand, and LPs receive a clear commitment before putting capital to work.

The allocation can become stale during the campaign. Trading volume moves, volatility changes, new assets launch, and some pools reach enough depth to compete without the same subsidy. Other markets may need more support than expected. A fixed campaign continues paying according to the assumptions made at the start until the campaign ends or a replacement is approved.

Ve33 separates the overall emission schedule from its allocation among pools. An ecosystem can still fund a known amount for a defined period. Locked stake-token holders decide how each unit of future emissions is distributed, and they can move their votes as market conditions change. The campaign keeps its budget and time horizon while its allocation remains responsive.

The pool fee can adapt at the same time. Voters choose a fee as part of each pool vote, and Ve33 applies the voting-power-weighted average. A pool facing more competition can move toward a lower fee, while a market with greater inventory risk may support a higher one.

Each allocation has an opportunity cost because the same voting power cannot support two pools at once. Voters earn fees only from the pools they support, so a market that attracts deposits without useful trading activity produces little fee income for them. Projects can also offer external voter incentives, revealing how much they value early or strategic liquidity even before organic fees develop.

How the marketplace sustains and grows

Trading fees are the first source of value. Traders pay for execution, and Ve33 accounts the full pool fee to its active voters, with no treasury share.

On the LP side, funded emissions go to active positions according to pool vote weight. Locking the stake token gives holders control over those rewards and access to the fees produced by their choices. Deeper and better-positioned liquidity can improve quotes, win more routed flow, and expand the fee base.

Once an ecosystem has a Ve33 deployment, demand for directed liquidity creates another source of value. A token issuer may value a liquid market because it improves distribution, price discovery, collateral support, integrations, and the experience of its own users. That value can be much larger than the swap fees available during a market’s early life. The issuer can acquire and lock the Ve33 stake token, or it can offer an external incentive for existing voters to support its pool. The right to direct emissions has a market value of its own.

Ve33 keeps external voter incentives outside the extension. The contracts provide the stake, vote, fee, and LP reward accounting that such a market needs. Projects can offer incentives through separate contracts or acquire voting power directly.

Emissions also distribute control. An LP reward moves stake tokens to someone currently providing liquidity. When those rewards are newly minted, existing holders are diluted. When they are funded from an existing reserve, control moves from the funder to the LP. The LP can sell the reward, use it elsewhere, or lock it to direct future emissions and earn pool fees.

Dromos calls the mint-funded version constructive dilution. It works when the liquidity and participation funded by issuance grow the system faster than token supply expands. Productive issuance leaves stakeholders with a smaller percentage of a more valuable network. Poorly allocated issuance buys short-lived TVL and weakens the token.

The growth path looks like this:

1. Emissions pay LPs to supply active liquidity.
2. Better liquidity improves execution and can attract more volume.
3. More volume creates more fees for voters.
4. Fee income and emission control make the stake token useful to LPs, projects, and contributors.
5. New demand for the token and its voting power increases the system’s capacity to attract liquidity and open markets.

This loop can compensate LPs above the fees generated today because the reward token can be locked for future pool fees and control over future emissions. That value depends on an expectation that subsidized liquidity will produce future usage. For mint-funded schedules, fee growth and other productive demand need to keep pace with dilution. Emission policy also needs room to respond when growth accelerates or slows. Dromos develops that argument in its essay on sustainability.

Scheduled rewards can also help preserve liquidity through a slow period. Fee-only LP income falls with volume, which can pull liquidity out and make execution worse just as activity weakens. Emissions give LPs another source of return while the market recovers. Their ability to play that role depends on credible token utility, disciplined issuance, and a path back to organic fee growth.

Growth can become cumulative as more markets join the same deployment. A new issuer that acquires voting power becomes a stakeholder in the wider system. Its pool gives traders and routers another reason to integrate, and those integrations make the marketplace more useful to the next issuer. Ekubo Core lowers the technical cost of that expansion because each market shares the same liquidity engine and integration surface.

Ve33 leaves the emission rate and minting policy outside the base extension. Anyone can fund a fixed schedule, and the optional scheduler can maintain a governance-configured target rate for a mintable token. This lets an ecosystem tune issuance around its growth plan while Ve33 handles allocation and accounting.

The same structure can align ongoing contributors when part of their compensation takes the form of a locked position. Their fee income then rises and falls with the markets they help build, and other teams can acquire a stake through the same public contracts. Dromos explores this approach to contributor funding in its essay on alignment.

Ve33 in practice: STONX on Robinhood Chain

The proposal to launch STONX on Robinhood Chain, currently being discussed on Discord, gives us a concrete example.

Ekubo Protocol wants stock tokens to trade on Ekubo. The proposal applies Ve33 at the ecosystem level: one STONX stake token would coordinate rewards across multiple stock-token markets on Robinhood Chain. It includes DAO-owned STONX/USDG liquidity, 100 days of initially funded emissions, and an initial vote direction toward stock-token markets. Ekubo, Inc.’s allocation would be max-staked, with the pool fees it earns funding continued development and maintenance.

The DAO and future STONX voters have several practical questions to work through:

• Is expected stock-token demand strong enough to support the initial subsidy?
• Which stock-token markets should receive emissions first?
• What fee gives traders competitive execution while producing useful voter revenue?
• How much additional volume follows each unit of emissions?
• Which onchain results should lead voters to maintain or redirect their weight?
• Does growth in usage and fees justify the STONX issued to LPs?

The proposal process can establish the initial assumptions. Once the markets are active, liquidity, volume, fees, and vote allocations give the community data for the next decision.

Ve33’s time-based accounting lets that feedback accumulate as the markets operate.

What continuous distribution means

Most Solidly descendants organize votes, emissions, and fee distribution around weekly epochs. Ve33 uses time-based accounting throughout.

Voter fees accrue through a pool fee-growth index as swaps execute. Funded LP emissions accrue through a global emission-growth index. Each pool receives a share based on its active vote weight, and that share becomes pool reward growth against the liquidity active at the time.

Accounting advances during ordinary interactions. Swaps, votes, position updates, and reward claims accrue the relevant state before applying a change. A separate weekly distribution transaction is unnecessary.

Continuous distribution here refers to the accounting of value between state changes. The contracts do not send a transaction to every stakeholder each second. They calculate the accumulated amount when a relevant pool or position is touched, and the stake or position owner can claim it.

Vote weights follow their own update rule. Current voting power is sampled when a user votes or performs an authorized stake operation that refreshes the vote. Stored pool weights stay fixed between those actions. Stake owners therefore need to maintain and renew their positions as locks approach expiration.

The emission schedule is modular. Anyone can fund a schedule for a chosen time interval. The repository also includes an optional scheduler that can mint enough tokens to maintain a configured target emission rate. A community can place control of that issuance policy in its preferred governance system.

Ve33 itself has no owner or administrator. Its base accounting includes no weekly epoch, bribe marketplace, anti-dilution rebase, or monetary policy. Communities can build external incentive and policy components around it as needed.

The same Ekubo Core underneath

Many ve(3,3) deployments include their own AMM pools, voter contracts, gauges, and reward contracts. The team building one of these systems usually has to implement and maintain the incentive layer and the trading engine together.

Ve33 contains the incentive and accounting logic. Ekubo Core supplies swap execution and pool liquidity.

A Ve33-aware router forwards the swap to the extension. Ve33 accrues rewards, reads the voter-selected fee, calls Core for the swap, and accounts the voter fee in Core saved balances. Routers and periphery contracts settle token transfers inside the Core lock. The extension does not custody ERC-20s or implement separate swap math.

Ve33 pools receive the same underlying capabilities as other Ekubo pools:

• singleton settlement and flash accounting
• high-precision concentrated liquidity
• stableswap support
• shared routers and integration surfaces
• isolated state for each pool
• the same Core implementation used by other Ekubo products

Ekubo’s extension architecture lets developers add pool behavior while relying on Core for AMM math. Ekubo also publishes its audit history, including a 2025 competitive Code4rena review of the EVM system.

The Ve33 accounting is new code with its own risks. The repository includes unit, fuzz, and stateful invariant coverage for stake backing, voter-fee solvency, emission solvency, vote consistency, and range-aware LP rewards.

What Ve33 makes possible

Ve33 focuses on five design choices:

1. Anyone can deploy an instance for a chain, protocol, launchpad, or other ecosystem and choose its stake token.
2. LP emissions move tokens and future control toward active liquidity providers.
3. Voters allocate a scarce emission budget, choose pool fees, and earn the fees produced by their choices.
4. Fees and LP emissions accrue continuously through onchain growth accounting.
5. Every pool uses Ekubo Core for liquidity and swap execution.

The STONX proposal is the first concrete discussion around using Ve33 to bootstrap a new market category. We are especially interested in how the community evaluates the first 100 days: which pools receive votes, how fee choices affect routing, how much volume follows the emissions, and how quickly voters adapt.

If you were allocating the first STONX emissions, which markets would you support, and what onchain result would make you keep the vote there?

The contracts and documentation are available in the repository. For implementation details and operational caveats, see the Ve33 user guide and architecture notes.