Bribe Markets

Bribe Markets are decentralized platforms where third parties pay governance token holders to vote in a specific way. In the context of gauge weighting, these markets allow projects to purchase voting power to direct emissions toward their own liquidity pools.

This creates a secondary market for governance influence, where the value of a vote is determined by the expected increase in yield for a specific pool. While controversial, bribe markets improve capital efficiency by allowing projects to attract liquidity without needing to hold massive amounts of the underlying governance token.

It transforms governance into a commoditized service where influence is traded based on economic utility. This mechanism adds a layer of complexity to the game theory of protocol management.