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Liquidity Rental

External protocols use Warren's bribe market to rent liquidity by the epoch. Instead of issuing perpetual liquidity-mining rewards on their own balance sheet, a protocol deposits bribes into the gauge of the pool where it wants depth. Voters allocate weight to that gauge in exchange for the bribes; emissions flow to the gauge; LPs follow the emissions; depth materializes.

How a rental works​

Rental flywheelvalue rotates clockwise · one full turn = one epochPartner protocolsdeposit bribesbWRN votersclaim bribes · voteLPssupply liquidityTraderspay swap feesbribesemissionsdepthfees · usageWarren poolGauge

Step by step:

  1. Deposit a bribe. A partner protocol transfers tokens to the gauge's reward depot. Common bribe tokens: USDC, the partner's own token, or any ERC-20.
  2. Voters allocate weight. bWRN holders see the pending bribes per gauge and allocate their votes to maximize their per-vote payout (bribes + expected fees) for the epoch.
  3. Snapshot and distribution. At epoch close, votes settle, the gauge receives its share of emissions, and bribes are distributed pro-rata among voters who supported the gauge.
  4. LPs follow. With emissions flowing into the gauge, LPs supply liquidity to capture WRN rewards. The pool deepens. The partner has its rental.
  5. Repeat next epoch if the partner wants to maintain depth.

A partner pays the bribe once per epoch, only when they want depth. They do not commit token supply to a multi-year emissions schedule on their own treasury, and they do not need to wind down a program if their priorities change — they just stop bribing.

Bribe mechanics​

  • Bribe deposit window. Bribes must be deposited before the snapshot for the epoch. Late bribes carry over to the next epoch.
  • Refunds. Bribes are non-refundable once deposited. If no voter allocates weight to the gauge, the bribes are still distributed — to the empty set, which means they sit in the contract until governance acts.
  • Multiple tokens per gauge. A gauge can hold bribes denominated in many different tokens simultaneously. Voters claim each token separately.
  • Whitelisting. By default any ERC-20 can be used as a bribe token. Governance may whitelist or blacklist specific tokens for the bribe market (e.g. to filter out tokens with malicious transfer hooks).

See Gauges for what a gauge is and Voting for how vote weight is computed and rewarded.