ve-lockers and gauges became the cornerstone of aligned tokenomics in DeFi. Spearheaded by Curve, they set the standard for rewarding long-term commitment and directing incentives where the community values them most.
Now, YieldBasis, led by the team behind Curve and the original ve and gauge vision on Aragon, is building on that model with a new protocol that sits on top of Curve pools and tackles one of DeFi’s biggest problems: impermanent loss.
To support this, Aragon has designed YieldBasis’ ve-locker and gauge framework natively on OSx, extending it with governance tailored for the YieldBasis ecosystem. The result is a protocol governance system that aligns long-term commitment, directs incentives, and protects decision-making, all delivered through Aragon’s modular stack.
YieldBasis tokens can be locked as veYB veNFTs, granting holders governance rights in protocol decisions. Voting power decays over time, ensuring long-term commitment is rewarded. veYB holders direct emissions, shaping the protocol’s growth through the ve and gauge model pioneered by Curve.
To support this launch, Aragon designed a modified Token Voting plugin for OSx. It adds mechanisms that make the model more robust and governance-aware:
Declining voting power for late voters → discourages last-minute swings and rewards early participation.
Proposal cooldowns → spam protection by enforcing a minimum wait between new proposals from the same creator.
Split voting → allows liquid lockers and autovoters to divide their voting power across yes/no/abstain, supporting more precise representation.
This combination of Curve-style tokenomics and governance refinements makes YieldBasis one of the most advanced implementations of the ve and gauge model to date.
Curve’s model solved incentive alignment, but it didn’t solve impermanent loss. YieldBasis builds directly on top of Curve pools, offsetting impermanent loss with crvUSD while using ve-style governance to allocate incentives.
At launch, YieldBasis focuses on BTC pools, giving BTC holders a way to liquidity pools without being dragged down by impermanent loss, while still earning protocol rewards and participating in governance through veYB locks. Over time, the framework can extend beyond BTC, bringing the same design to other assets and pools.
The launch underscores how Aragon’s modular stack can host the most proven tokenomics frameworks built to evolve as customizable designs that protocols can adapt to their own needs, rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
YieldBasis brings together two powerful ideas: the ve and gauge model pioneered by Curve, and a novel AMM design that offsets impermanent loss. With Aragon powering its governance system and tokenomic design, it shows how protocols can build on proven frameworks while innovating at the edges, solving real problems for liquidity providers and evolving token infrastructure for the next generation of DeFi.
Dive into value accrual mechanisms and how Aragon’s Value Accrual Toolkit can benefit your project, or get in touch with the team to start building today.
