[BIP-919] BAL Tokenomics Revamp

[0xDanko]

Authors: @danielmk, @0xDanko, @Xeonus, @mendesfabio, @Marcus

PR with Payloads

[BIP-919] BAL Tokenomics Revamp (#2744)

Summary

This proposal aims to transition Balancer protocol from emission-subsidized growth to revenue-driven sustainability. It is designed to be voted alongside the companion [BIP-XXX] Operational Restructuring for Balancer.

The TL;DR of core changes introduced are:

• Reduce the V3 swap fee protocol share from 50% to 25%, so liquidity providers keep a larger share of the fees they generate.
• Halt all BAL token emissions immediately.
• Discontinue veBAL. No more (re)locks will be encouraged as all benefits to veBAL holders are halted. A compensation for the immediate discontinuation of veBAL is proposed below. .
• Route 100% of all protocol fees to the DAO Treasury, replacing the current fragmented split between veBAL holders, core pool incentives, partners, and the DAO.
• Delegate day-to-day governance decisions to a Core team mandate, while veBAL (during the one year phase out) and BAL holders retain voting power on major protocol decisions.
• Discontinue the Balancer Alliance program.
• Create a campaign to distribute $500K to veBAL holders as compensation for the abrupt end of economic benefits.
• Offer a BAL buyback and burn program capped at 35% of Treasury value at Snapshot (~$3.6M), providing exit liquidity for holders who want out. At current prices, this would retire roughly 35% of circulating supply.

Motivation & Context

Balancer’s tokenomics was designed for a growth phase, incentivizing liquidity through BAL emissions and distributing fees to veBAL holders and a small portion to the Treasury. That model achieved its original purpose, but has run its course. The economics are now working against the protocol.

• Emissions dilute every holder. Approximately 3.78M BAL will be emitted annually, creating persistent sell pressure and devaluing existing positions.
• The incentives market creates circular economics. The protocol pays intermediaries through incentives to attract liquidity that generates less fee revenue than the emissions cost.
• The Treasury captures a small fraction of revenue. Of (current) ~$1.65M in annualized protocol fees, the DAO currently receives only ~$290K/year (~17.5%). The remainder flows to veBAL holders and core pool incentives through legacy splits that no longer serve the protocol’s interests.
• veBAL governance has been captured. Meta-governance protocols (Aura) and large holders (Humpy) have concentrated voting power, making veBAL governance increasingly unrepresentative of the broader Balancer community.

Metric	Current Value	Source
Protocol fees (annualized)	$1.65M	On-chain data, Dec/Jan/Feb/26
Protocol fees (3 months)	$413K	On-chain data
DAO fees (3 months)	$72K	On-chain data
Annualized DAO revenue	~$290K/year	Extrapolated from 3-month data
BAL price	~$0.154	Market data
BAL net asset value per token	~$0.160	Treasury / circulating supply
Treasury (excluding BAL)	~$10.3M	On-chain treasury records
Annual BAL emissions	~3.78M BAL	BAL emission schedule
Annual operating budget	$2.87M(1)	BIP-873 roadmap

(1) Does not take into account BLabs expenses

BAL is trading below its net asset value (NAV), meaning holders are implicitly subsidizing the Treasury. This proposal corrects that by offering exit liquidity at a fair price and building a model where the remaining Treasury sustains the protocol long-term.

Why act now: status quo vs. this proposal

	Status Quo (no change)	Proposed
Annual BAL dilution	~3.78M BAL/year	Zero
DAO revenue capture	~$290K/year (17.5% of fees)	~$1.22M/year (100% of fees)
Annual operating deficit	~$2.6M	~$700K
Treasury runway	<4 years	~9 years (neutral scenario)
veBAL economic value	Declining yield, market below NAV	Buyback at NAV (~$0.16)
Governance capture	Aura/meta-governance concentrated	Core team mandate + BAL/veBAL on major decisions
Incentives market	Circular economics, net-negative ROI	Eliminated

Continuing the current model for another year costs the protocol ~$580K in BAL sell pressure, ~$2.6M in operating deficit, and delivers diminishing returns to veBAL holders. This proposal offers a concrete alternative: route 100% of fees to the Treasury, reduce V3 protocol fees to attract more TVL, and move to an estimated ~$1.22M/year in DAO revenue against a lean operating budget (detailed in the companion Operations BIP, premises and assumptions to different scenarios can be found here: source).

Specification

BAL Emissions and Gauges

BAL token emissions are halted upon vote passage. A phased reduction, gradually winding down, would add complexity without objectively measurable benefits, including prolonging uncertainty. The vote and implementation timeline itself provides the market with advance notice.

The gauge infrastructure for third-party incentive routing (projects directing their own non-BAL rewards through the existing system) is maintained on a best-effort basis. The core team may address the long-term future of gauge infrastructure, including potential migration to MERKL. The intent is to preserve the ability for protocols like Aave, Lido, and RocketPool to incentivize their own liquidity on Balancer.

Protocol Fee Structure

At 50% swap fee, Balancer’s take is among the highest in DeFi. The reduction means LPs keep a larger share of the fees they generate, making Balancer pools more attractive for organic liquidity. The trade-off is lower per-swap revenue, but a more competitive fee structure should attract incremental TVL. Individual pool rates may be adjusted by the core team if the data supports differentiation.

Fee Type	Current Rate	Proposed Rate	Rationale
V3 swap fees	50%	25%	Reduces Balancer’s protocol fee. LPs keep 75% of swap fees, making pools more competitive.
V2 swap fees	50%	50% (unchanged)	V2 is being sunset [BIP-887]. No incentive to reduce fees on a deprecated version.
Yield fees (incl. boosted pools)	10%	10% (unchanged)	Already competitive. No change needed.
reCLAMM protocol fee	25%	25% (unchanged)	Already set at the proposed V3 standard in [BIP-893].
Protocol fee distribution	Split: veBAL / incentives / DAO	100% to DAO Treasury	Eliminates circular economics. All revenue builds the operating reserve.

Fee Routing

100% of all protocol fees route to the Treasury. This replaces the current split where revenue was distributed to veBAL holders (fee share), core pool incentives, the Balancer Alliance program, partners and the DAO. Under the new model, all protocol revenue (V2 swap and yield fees, V3 swap fees, V3 yield fees, LBP fees, and any future fees) flows to a single destination. This simplifies accounting, minimizes the need for onchain operations, maximizes capital reserves for runway, and eliminates the circular economics of using protocol revenue to subsidize liquidity incentives.The objective of the protocol going forward is to run as profitably as possible, accumulating a treasury that can be eventually used for more buy backs in the future.

Vote Markets

All voting-incentive-based programs are terminated. The protocol will no longer allocate budget to StakeDAO’s Votemarket, Paladin, or any other vote marketplace to attract liquidity through incentive-driven gauge voting. With no BAL emissions or gauge voting, these programs serve no economic purpose.

veBAL and Governance

Upon passing of the vote, the last bi-weekly fee run will be executed as normal. Thereafter, fee distributions to veBAL holders will cease. They will no longer receive protocol fee share or any direct economic benefit from holding veBAL. With BAL token emissions eliminated and fees routed entirely to the Treasury, there is no economic function for veBAL to serve.

Governance transitions to a dual voting system where both veBAL and unlocked BAL tokens carry voting rights. This means any BAL holder can participate in protocol governance without needing to lock tokens, while existing veBAL holders retain their voting power for the duration of their lock. The specific mechanics of this dual system (vote weighting, quorum thresholds, and implementation details) will be defined in a dedicated governance proposal.

veBAL Economics Cutoff Compensation Campaign

To compensate veBAL holders that have locked positions and will experience an abrupt cutoff on economic incentives, a $500K compensation campaign will be distributed over a 6-month period. Distributions will be proportional to each holder’s veBAL balance, retroactively snapshot to the moment of this proposal, paid in stablecoins from the DAO Treasury.

Balancer Alliance

The Balancer Alliance Program (BIP-812) is discontinued. The program shared protocol fees with partners in exchange for veBAL accumulation and permanent relocking. Adoption fell short (Dune), and the program’s architecture is incompatible with the restructured tokenomics. It was built entirely around the veBAL system that this proposal fundamentally changes.

Going forward, partner alignment is achieved through competitive LP fee economics, with the core team having leeway to negotiate specific fee structures where warranted. Existing Alliance commitments will be honored through the current processing cycle and then terminated.

Partner Fee Split Agreements

Given 100% of protocol fee revenue will be redirected to the DAO Treasury, any partner fee share agreement will be terminated. This includes the fee share with Beets for managing the OP deployment [BIP-800] as well as QuantAMMs Protocol fee framework [BIP-871]. EZKL [BIP-875] is sunsetted. Any future partner fee share agreement needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and decided by the Core team.

BAL Buyback and Burn Offer

The proposal offers to buy back BAL at Treasury’s net asset value (NAV) excluding BAL, providing voluntary exit liquidity for holders at a price that remains a meaningful option over the current market.

Parameter	Value
Total cap	35% of Treasury holdings at Snapshot, earmarked for buybacks
Buyback price	NAV price (Treasury $ excluding BAL / BAL circulating supply)
All purchased BAL	Burned
Exercise	12 months post Snapshot; 12 week window

Why NAV?: BAL’s market price as of writing (~$0.154) sits below the protocol’s net asset value per token (~$0.16). Buying at NAV means the DAO pays a slight premium over market, but the positive impact is significant: holders who want out get a fair price without slippage or market impact, and every BAL purchased is permanently removed from circulating supply.

Why 35%?: At current Treasury levels ($10.3M), the 35% cap allocates approximately $3.6M for buybacks. Earmarking this amount at Snapshot effectively creates a price-floor for token holders and secures a healthy operational runway in the Treasury.

Scale of impact: At ~$3.6M and a NAV of ~$0.16, the buyback would retire approximately 22.7M BAL if fully exercised. Roughly 35% of circulating supply and 6x the annual emission rate. This substantially addresses the overhang from years of emission-driven dilution in a single program.

Execution: The Treasury Council will earmark and set aside the buyback allocation in stablecoins. After 12 months (once veBAL locks begin expiring), a 12-week claim window opens for holders to burn their BAL against that allocation. The specific claim mechanism (smart contract design, eligibility verification) is TBD and will be implemented by the core team prior to the window opening. If the buyback is not fully exercised, remaining stablecoins reintegrate into the Treasury when the window closes.

Parameter	Value
Buyback price	~$0.16/BAL (NAV)
Total cap (35%)	~$3.6M (at $10.3M treasury)
BAL acquired (full redemption)	~22.7M BAL (~35% of the circulating supply)
Post-buyback treasury	~$6.2M remaining

At the post-buyback Treasury level (~$6.2M), with estimated DAO revenue of ~$1.22M/year and the $1.9M/year operating budget outlined in the companion Operations BIP, the annual deficit narrows to ~$700K, giving Balancer development ~9 years of runway in the neutral scenario.

Expected Impact

BAL Holders

• Positive: Halting emissions and offering buyback options provides a voluntary exit at NAV value, favoring exiting investors. Reduced supply and real revenue model support long-term value for holders who stay as governance stakeholders. BAL tokens will gain voting power through the new dual voting system alongside veBAL.
• Negative: No more fee distributions via veBAL. Economic rights are sunset. Holders who locked for yield lose their expected return.
• Net: Holders who believe in Balancer’s future benefit from zero dilution and a leaner protocol focusing on PMF as opposed to incentives. Holders who want to exit get a fair deal and liquidity depth that is non-existent today. The current veBAL model was already delivering diminishing returns and the buyback offer provides more value than riding out the decline.

Liquidity Providers

• Positive: V3 protocol fee drops from 50% to 25%, meaning LPs keep a larger share of swap fees. Simplified fee structure is easier to manage.
• Negative: BAL emission rewards disappear entirely. For LPs who were net-positive only because of BAL rewards, this makes those positions unprofitable. Projects that relied on gauge voting (and vlAURA) to attract liquidity to their Balancer pools lose that mechanism.
• Net: LPs increase earnings from organic swap fees. For those who depended on BAL incentives, the fee reduction partially offsets the losses. For pools that were not incentive-dependent, results only improve. Partners building on Balancer’s core infrastructure (aggregators, chain deployments) are unaffected or benefit.

DAO Treasury

• Positive: 100% fee capture. Using fee statistics for the months after the November exploit: Estimated ~$1.22M/year revenue vs. current ~$290K/year. ~$6.2M post-buyback reserve.
• Negative: ~$3.6M one-time cost for buyback and $500K for veBAL holder compensation impact future runway.
• Net: The Treasury is well positioned long-term. The buyback offer and the veBAL compensation campaign are one-time expenses that provide holder alignment and remove an overhang.

Conclusion

Stopping emissions entirely could trigger meaningful TVL decline as incentive-dependent liquidity exits. The V3 swap fee reduction from 50% to 25% partially compensates LPs, and core pools already generate organic volume regardless of incentives since the protocol was accelerating this transition. Moving forward, BD will focus on key partnerships to retain business.

veBAL holders lose economic rights. They may vote against both BIPs to preserve the status quo. The buyback offer at NAV and the compensation campaign provide a fair exit, more valuable than the diminishing returns of the current model, while maintaining a healthy runway for the Balancer protocol to keep operating with a lean structure that is still able to deliver positive results and innovations.

This vote gives BAL holders a choice: take a fair exit or stay for a leaner, more sustainable protocol.

[juani]

Thanks for putting this together and bringing it forward.

It’s an incredibly bold proposal, in line with the current times and past events. The new system would be much simpler, and that’s very much needed in this context.

You have my support, and I’ll be voting in favor with whatever power I have.

[sagix]

A builder’s response to the tokenomics revamp

“Balancer’s long term success depends entirely on the success of the protocols and products built on top of it… No single product or project can beat a thriving ecosystem of diverse teams focusing on different problems, addressing different markets and creating their own business models.” Fernando Martinelli, 2021

Fernando has announced his support for this proposal, and I understand why. The emissions model is dilutive, the veBAL system has been captured, and the Treasury needs revenue. These are real problems. I agree with the diagnosis.

But the proposal optimises for the current state rather than discovering the next one. The November exploit caused a TVL shock. Recovery requires new reasons to use the protocol. V3 provides those reasons, it´s an architecture that no other AMM can replicate. But V3’s routing potential is unrealised. Realising it requires experimentation by external teams. Experimentation requires a permissionless discovery mechanism. This proposal removes the only one that exists, and in doing so, freezes the routing layer in its current underdeveloped state.

To be transparent upfront: my veBAL is locked and my vlAURA is locked for the cycle. I can’t sell either regardless of what happens. This is not about my bag — it’s about what Balancer loses if this passes as written.

TL;DR: This proposal fixes the circular economics but removes V3’s only permissionless, scalable discovery mechanism. Balancer hasn’t yet realized the routing advantage V3 enables, and removing the tool that lets builders experiment ensures it never does. Without it, new pools launch at 0% yield with no path to liquidity. Builders go to Curve or Aerodrome, where discovery tools still exist.

The question for voters: are we optimizing for Balancer as it is today, or discovering what V3 makes possible? The circular economics deserve to die. The discovery mechanism does not.

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What I built and why it only exists here

I deployed five multi-asset pools on Balancer V3, the Miliarium Aureum, holding the highest-volume tokens in DeFi: cbBTC, AAVE, LINK, XAUt, GHO, and yield-bearing stablecoins. Each is a five-token weighted pool covering ten trading pairs simultaneously, with 52% ERC-4626 composition. V3 does something no other AMM can do with these same tokens: LPs earn native vault yield on the yield-bearing components while sitting in the pool, multi-asset composition dampens impermanent loss, low fees attract aggregator routing, and hooks enable custom pricing logic like StableSurge.

The dual-anchor architecture is impossible on Uniswap, Curve, or any other AMM. It requires multi-asset weighted pools, ERC-4626 rate providers, and the Smart Order Router’s ability to split trades across parallel paths. Every dollar of TVL in the Miliarium Aureum is permanently Balancer’s.

Emissions bootstrap these pools. They don’t sustain them. Once a pool reaches sufficient depth, aggregator solvers index it, and once routing paths are encoded, they tend to persist as long as minimum viable depth is maintained. Volume flows regardless of BAL rewards. The structural advantages such as 52% of LP capital earning native vault yield independent of trading, ten pairs per pool instead of one, lower fees than Uniswap, they will persist.

Emissions compress the time it takes to reach that self-sustaining state. Without them, the pool may never get there.

A critical point on causality: this proposal assumes volume creates routing, and routing creates success. The reality is reversed. Routing depth doesn’t create itself. It emerges from seeded liquidity structures. Emissions seed the liquidity. Liquidity enables routing. Routing generates volume. Volume generates fees. Without the first step, the chain never starts.

I committed 20,000 veBAL, have been accumulating vlAURA, and am the first LP in every pool. Funded entirely through a day job with no grants, no VC, no token sales.

I built here because of three things:

1. Pool architecture: Balancer’s founding premise is that it allows permissionless iteration and complete reconstruction of pool designs. My pools structurally cannot exist elsewhere. But architecture without bootstrapping tools is a museum: technically impressive, economically empty.

2. Permissionless emissions: veBAL and vlAURA allowed me, a solo builder with no BD relationship and no grant application, to bootstrap my own pools. I acquired governance, directed emissions, and created yield on my infrastructure without asking anyone’s permission.

3. The Aura amplifier: vlAURA gave a small builder more governance than raw veBAL. Fernando is right that meta-governance has been used for capture. But Aura was actively supported by Balancer, it was built as an ecosystem partner, not a rogue actor. Now it is not anymore? And the same system that Humpy exploited is also what allowed a solo builder to meaningfully direct emissions without being a whale. The problem is governance capture by bad actors, not the amplifier mechanism itself. Eliminating vlAURA’s economic function concentrates governance in the hands of the largest BAL holders and a 12.5-person core team. That is solving capture by removing participation entirely.

This proposal eliminates two of these three. The architecture survives. The permissionless builder pathway does not. I am not an outlier case, I am exactly the type of builder this system currently enables: capital-constrained, independent, and willing to experiment without permission. The question is whether there will be any reason for the next builder in that category to make the same commitment I did.

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The emissions are not the problem, the valuation Is

The proposal states that 3.78M BAL/year creates ~$580K in sell pressure. At $0.154/BAL, that’s correct. But that number is a symptom of the valuation, not a cause.

Protocol	MC/TVL
Cetus	~0.5×
Curve	~1.0×
Uniswap	~2.0×
Balancer	0.067×

At Cetus multiples, the same emissions would be worth ~$4.3M/year which would be enough to fund the entire operating budget. The emissions aren’t expensive. They’re cheap because BAL is mispriced.

What BAL needs is not fewer emissions, it’s a mechanism to discover V3’s routing potential. Volume drives fees. Fees drive revenue. Revenue drives re-rating. But volume doesn’t appear spontaneously on new pool architectures, it follows routing depth, and routing depth emerges from seeded liquidity. Re-rating comes from the market seeing real volume-generating infrastructure built on V3. Remove the discovery mechanism and the re-rating never arrives.

The Miliarium Aureum is designed to be that proof of concept. The same tokens that generate billions in daily volume on Uniswap, in pair-based pools, with full IL exposure, no underlying yield, one pair per pool, arranged in a superior architecture that Uniswap cannot replicate. This is what V3 was designed for.

Cutting emissions to save $580K/year while Curve maintains CRV emissions and Aerodrome maintains AERO emissions is unilateral disarmament in a competitive market. Balancer removes its discovery mechanism while every competitor retains theirs. The 5.4% annual dilution is modest by DeFi standards. The opportunity cost of removing V3’s only permissionless, scalable discovery mechanism is not.

Balancer is underutilised relative to what V3 enables. The architecture supports multi-asset routing, yield-bearing compositions, and capital-efficient pool designs that no competitor can replicate. But that routing layer is underdeveloped, not because the technology doesn’t work, but because not enough teams have had the tools to build on it. BAL MC / TVL multiple is priced for stagnation. and removing the discovery mechanism ensures it stays there.

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The aura unwind: a systemic risk the proposal does NOT model

The proposal eliminates $580K/year in BAL emission sell pressure. But it introduces a new systemic risk that hasn’t been priced or modelled.

Aura holds a significant portion of all veBAL as auraBAL. If AURA’s economic function dies, and it WILL under this proposal, auraBAL holders have a rational incentive to exit. They redeem auraBAL for the underlying 80/20 BAL/WETH BPT. They withdraw from the 80/20 pool. They receive BAL and WETH.

They sell the BAL.

This may not happen all at once, but the incentive structure makes it likely, and the proposal doesn’t model the scenario. If it does happen, the sell pressure is not a gradual $580K/year drip, it is a compressed unwind of Aura’s veBAL position over weeks, not years.

The proposal offers a BAL buyback at NAV (~$0.16) capped at $3.6M. If a concentrated unwind pushes BAL below $0.16, the buyback becomes the only bid, and it’s capped. Everyone beyond the cap sells into a market with no floor.

And the $3.6M buyback at NAV? The largest holders, including the very governance captors this proposal identifies as the problem, have the strongest incentive to exit first at a premium over market. If Humpy’s position fills the buyback cap, smaller holders get nothing and sell into an open market with no floor.

This is a reflexive risk that the proposal introduces without modelling. If a governance proposal creates a new systemic risk, that risk should be quantified before implementation, not discovered after the vote passes.

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No replacement for V3’s discovery mechanism

The proposal frames emissions as circular economics with net-negative ROI. That framing is correct for legacy pools where emissions subsidize stagnant liquidity. I agree.

But the same mechanism is also the only permissionless, scalable way for external teams to discover what V3 can do. The proposal offers no replacement. The companion Operations BIP restructures growth to “focused strategic engagement” and “outreach reserved for large strategic partnerships.”

The missing concept here is time-to-viability. This is not about whether pools eventually attract organic liquidity, it’s about whether they reach viability before builders abandon them. A pool displaying 0% BAL rewards while Curve and Aerodrome show emission-boosted yields next door will not attract LPs, no matter how superior the architecture. The builder waits weeks, then months, then gives up. Emissions don’t just add yield, they compress time-to-viability from months to weeks. That is the difference between a builder choosing Balancer and choosing somewhere else.

And the deeper problem is selection pressure. Without a discovery mechanism, only already-liquid or already-connected teams survive on Balancer. That is not discovery, that is selection bias. The pool designs that would have revealed V3’s routing potential never get tested, because their builders never reach viability. The protocol doesn’t learn what it’s capable of.

Emissions are not an incentive program. They are V3’s R&D funding layer. Removing them doesn’t cut waste. It cuts the protocol’s ability to learn.

This is not a novel problem, it is the same economic structure as every discovery platform. YouTube did not start with ad revenue. It subsidized creators first because without content, there are no viewers, and without viewers, there is no revenue. The platform could not know in advance which creators would succeed. It had to enable creation before it could select outcomes.

Balancer V3 faces the same constraint. Emissions fund pool creation. Liquidity enables routing depth. Routing enables aggregator inclusion. Aggregator inclusion drives volume. Volume generates fees. The full pipeline: emissions → routing → volume → revenue. Every step is observable on-chain. The subsidy is temporary. The routing revenue is permanent.

If emissions are removed, the pipeline breaks at the first step. No creation → no routing → no volume → no fees. The system does not degrade gradually. It fails to start. This proposal removes the input to a system whose output we are trying to increase.

The question is not whether to subsidize, it is what to subsidize.

The previous system subsidized generic liquidity and attracted mercenary capital. That failed. But a constrained system, with emissions directed only to V3-native, yield-bearing, multi-asset pools is not paying for liquidity. It is funding discovery. And without discovery, V3’s routing layer is never realized.

The V3 architecture is the best in DeFi. I believe that that is why I built on it specifically because of its technical superiority. But architecture alone does not attract builders or liquidity.

If that’s true, and the current TVL and volume metrics suggest it is, then the current state of the protocol is not the baseline to optimize around. It’s an incomplete system. Current metrics are irrelevant to what V3 can become. Current pools are fragments of an undiscovered routing network. Optimizing the economics of an incomplete system is premature. The priority should be discovering what V3 can actually do, and that means enabling pool designs that don’t exist yet, built by teams that haven’t started yet, solving problems nobody has identified yet. Without a permissionless mechanism for that experimentation, it never happens.

I’d put one question to every voter:

if emissions are removed, what mechanism discovers new routing structures on V3?

The proposal’s answer is BD outreach, grants, and organic growth. All three are slower, permissioned, and non-scalable. A 12.5-person team cannot discover what a permissionless ecosystem of builders can. That is the entire lesson of Fernando’s 2021 statement.

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What I’d propose instead

I’m not arguing for the status quo. The circular economics on legacy pools are real. The Treasury needs more revenue. These are legitimate problems. But the solution is reformation, not elimination.

The old emissions system directed rewards to generic liquidity: V2 pools, the 80/20 BAL/WETH gauge, stagnant pairs with no structural edge. That attracted mercenary capital that left the moment incentives dropped. The proposal is right to kill that.

But the reformed version looks nothing like the old one:

Preserve the discovery mechanism and redirect it.

Stop emissions to the 80/20 BAL/WETH pool entirely since BAL emissions flowing to BAL holders is the definition of circular economics.

Restrict gauge eligibility to V3 pools with ERC-4626 composition above 50%, ensuring emissions flow exclusively to architecturally sound pools that generate yield fee revenue for the protocol. No legacy V2 pools, no governance staking, no single-pair commodity pools.

Set a minimum TVL threshold low enough to allow discovery ($10K) rather than the $100K Core Pool requirement that excludes new builders by design.

The emission rate stays the same only the destination changes. veBAL holders retain voting power to direct emissions across eligible V3 pools, preserving the governance mechanism while eliminating the circular economics. I hold 20K veBAL and this proposal would eliminate my own staking yield. I’m making the suggestion anyway because it’s the right design.

Under this model, emissions become what they should have been from the start: R&D funding for V3’s routing layer. Not subsidies for mercenary capital on generic pairs, but investment in the discovery of pool architectures that create structural advantages no competitor can replicate. The circular economics die. The discovery mechanism lives.

Preserve gauge infrastructure with performance criteria. Require pools to demonstrate minimum organic volume or TVL growth to remain gauge-eligible. Unproductive gauges die naturally. Productive ones keep the bootstrapping tool. Sunset over 12-18 months, not a cliff. Give builders time to transition pools to organic fee sustainability. A cliff halt creates maximum disruption with no adjustment period.

Reform Aura compatibility, don’t destroy it. The governance capture problem is real but the solution is better rules, not eliminating the amplifier. The proposed emission mechanism restricts vlAURA voting to V3 pools only, as described above, rather than removing the system that makes governance accessible below whale scale.

Route fees to Treasury: I agree with this. veBAL holders receiving of fees while the Treasury runs a $2.6M deficit is not sustainable. Fix the revenue side. But don’t destroy the builder incentive layer in the same proposal.

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I’d ask the authors and every voter to sit with one question before this goes to a vote: are we optimising for Balancer as it is today, or discovering what V3 makes possible?

If the answer requires a BD call, a grant application, or a partnership agreement, then this proposal has replaced a flawed but permissionless discovery mechanism with no discovery mechanism at all. The circular economics deserve to die. V3’s routing potential deserves a chance to be discovered. Don’t remove the only mechanism that discovers it.

I am not mercenary capital. I am not a farm-and-dump actor. I am not a governance extractor. I am a builder who committed permanent capital, deployed novel infrastructure, and funded everything while having a day job. I am exactly the partner the emissions system was designed to attract. If a fully self-funded, architecturally committed builder cannot reach viability under the new model, the system excludes that class of participant entirely. And if it does, then who exactly is this protocol being built for?

For a detailed look at what V3-native routing infrastructure looks like in practice: The Miliarium Aureum — Dual-Anchor AMMs and the Small-World Routing Problem

https://balancer.fi/pools?textSearch=ixedel+or+svzchf

Sagix — sagix.io Builder on Balancer V3

[sagix]

To illustrate what V3 discovery looks like in practice I have been preparing for some time now:

Deep Markets for a Safer Frankencoin: svZCHF Liquidity Infrastructure on...

This is what a builder does with the emissions mechanism: builds routing infrastructure for an underserved currency, connects it to an existing protocol’s economics, creates minting demand that benefits their treasury at zero cost to them.

This is the kind of cross-protocol integration that only external builders produce: an oracle-free savings module from one protocol becoming the yield-bearing anchor of a routing constellation on another.

That kind of innovation doesn’t come from a roadmap. It comes from a permissionless ecosystem.

[sagix]

One final point.

The cost of maintaining a constrained discovery mechanism is measurable and bounded.

The cost of removing it is not because it is the set of pool designs, routing structures, and integrations that never get built.

If V3 adoption remains flat after this passes, there will be no way to know whether the architecture failed or whether the mechanism required to discover its advantages was removed prematurely.

For comparison: the proposal allocates $500K in stablecoins to compensate departing veBAL holders.

That same $500K could instead be used as a controlled experiment: seeding five V3 pools with >50% ERC-4626 composition at $100K each. This is sufficient to cross initial aggregator routing thresholds and generate real data on whether V3-native routing produces organic volume.

Run the experiment for six months. Measure volume, fees, and routing persistence.

If it works, the protocol has identified a credible growth path.

If it doesn’t, the capital can be withdrawn and reallocated.

One approach produces data. The other produces exits.

[belbix]

Tetu postion

As the founder of Tetu, I want to state this clearly.

For Tetu, this move is economically equivalent to a rug pull.

The proposed compensation is only a small fraction of the total veBAL value. Calling it “compensation” already implies a loss event — but in reality, this looks like a 51% governance attack that smaller participants have no way to influence.

More importantly, this breaks the implicit contract made with veBAL holders and integrators. Yes, market conditions are difficult, but this is not a justification to externalize losses onto long-term participants.

This situation is made worse by structural asymmetry. Large aggregators like Aura are in a position to both receive compensation and later exit their veBAL exposure. Tetu, on the other hand, cannot (tetuBAL is permalocked).

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When tetuBAL was approved, we were explicitly required to give up upgradeability and restrict our ability to exit veBAL positions as a condition of integration (see governance discussion: [Proposal] Allow Whitelist tetuBAL in Balancer VotingEscrow - #21 by solarcurve
). We accepted these constraints in good faith to align with the system.

As a result, Tetu is now locked into a position where we bear the full downside of this decision, without having any meaningful way to react — while other participants are structurally better positioned.

---

This raises serious questions about whether veToken governance is still aligned with token holders, or effectively captured.

This also sets a dangerous precedent for all ve-style systems — where aggregation can override the very stakeholders the system was designed to protect.

For Tetu, this means writing off years of work — as it does for many other projects — with no meaningful recovery. Any compensation we receive will, of course, go directly to TetuBAL holders.

---

What is being proposed here is not just a restructuring — it effectively risks dismantling what remains of the Balancer ecosystem.

The current veBAL model, while imperfect, is still functioning. It has formed an ecosystem of integrations, strategies, and aligned participants that has already absorbed a major shock and is beginning to stabilize.

There is a very real risk that this “reset” does not lead to a stronger protocol, but instead accelerates its collapse. From the outside, this does not look like optimization — it looks like shutting down the system and distributing what’s left.

I have already seen this perception reflected externally as: “Balancer is winding down.” That alone should be a serious warning signal.

The proposed changes remove the very mechanisms that created and sustained the ecosystem in the first place, without clear evidence that organic demand alone can replace them.

[mieszko_thx.network]

How was the $500k veBAL compensation over half a year chosen? A quick calculation points at this roughly being 8% APR on the veBAL value which arguably is quite low.

Double that would be more reasonable considering the missed out protocol fees. So proposing to increase the compensation to $1M.

[0xMaha]

It is no secret that the economics around veBAL have been decaying for a while, and that Octobers hack was another unfortunate negative trigger. In short, it’s been bleeding out. With this in mind, making such a definitive proposal is an honest attempt at starting from a fresh slate, and the 35% buyback and 500k to veBAL holders is a reasonable proposition.

I would push back on the argument that veBAL governance is captured and unrepresentative - Aura has never tried to make unreasonable proposals and has acted in line with Balancer decisions to boost treasury at its own expense, only protecting basic interests of the veBAL system on which it is built. There are points to be made there from multiple perspectives, but this proposal outlines a definitive end to this current locking system and the concentration of decision making power into a single entity which ultimately removes any potential misalignments and provides clarity.

Two changes to resolution I would propose:

• Increase the buyback from 35% to 50 or 60% (slightly discounted?) - resulting in leaving only those holders who believe in the future of the project, could be better for everyone medium/long term
• Consider accepting tetuBAL as part of the buyback, maybe at a further discount, given the BAL itself can’t be burned

I have outlined a proposal for Aura with this tokenomics revamp in mind.

[sagix]

The proposal is evolving from a restructuring into a liquidation.

35% buyback was already generous (and unnecessary). Now delegates are asking for 50-60%. Add $500K veBAL compensation, $1.9M/year operating costs and conference trips, the 9-year runway starts looking like 2-3.

This is a silver parachute for insiders, yet, at a stupid valuation. It’s bad even for aura holders.

Tetu’s permalocked tetuBAL is being offered a ‘steeper discount’ punished for doing exactly what the protocol asked them to do. And StakeDAO’s sdBAL holders, simply forgotten? The partners who committed hardest get the worst exit terms.

The effect on builders, Tetu, and StakeDAO is the same: permanent capital gets the worst terms, liquid capital gets the best exit, and the treasury pays for it.

At this point “restructuring for sustainability” becomes “distributing the treasury to insiders before the lights go off”.

I submitted an alternative proposal that preserves the same runway, the same fee capture, the same operating budget while keeping the only mechanism that creates demand for BAL.

Not supply-side intervention. Demand creation.

The alternative is here: # [BIP-XXX] BAL Tokenomics Revamp: ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL

Every dollar spent on buybacks before PMF exists is a dollar that can’t fund the discovery of PMF. The treasury should be building, not exiting insiders at preferred deals.

[sagix]

We have 3 proposals on the table now.

THE question for @kpk @nesk.kpk as the DAO’s treasury manager: has a risk assessment been published on each proposals’ impact on runway under the revised buyback percentages now being discussed?

The treasury manager’s mandate is to safeguard the DAO’s funds. The buyback is evolving from 35% to potentially 60%. Combined with operating costs and compensation, the 9-year runway projection changes materially.

The community deserves to see the numbers before voting.

[sagix]

One structural observation on the proposals that hasn’t been discussed:

The revamp eliminates veBAL governance and replaces it with a “Core team mandate” for day-to-day decisions.

The operational restructuring consolidates all operations under a single entity with a 5/7 Treasury Council multisig composed entirely of current team members.

After these proposals pass:
∙ Emissions: controlled by the team (eliminated)
∙ Fee parameters: controlled by the team
∙ Chain deployments: controlled by the team
∙ Partner agreements: controlled by the team
∙ Treasury: controlled by the team (via Karpatkey)
∙ Hiring and firing: controlled by the team
∙ Protocol upgrades: controlled by the team

BAL holders retain voting power on “major protocol decisions” but who defines what qualifies as major? The team.

This is not decentralized governance with a lean team. This is a centralized company with a token.

The token has no emissions, no fee share, no economic rights, and governance authority over nothing that matters day-to-day.

If this is the intended structure, it should be stated plainly.

Because the community is voting to transfer all meaningful protocol authority to a 12.5-person team with no external oversight mechanism. This is a going private transaction now.

Will BAL respond to regulators like the SEC or MiCA now? Probably MiCA with the team’s presence in Cannes.

If this proposals passes, we should be discussing how a protocol with all meaningful decisions controlled by a 12.5-person team, a BVI corporate entity, a treasury managed by a third party, and a token with no governance authority over day-to-day operations, no fee share and no economic value. This must respond to MiCA’s “fully decentralised” exemption test or the SEC’s “efforts of others” standard?

Because right now these proposals here are building exactly the structure both regulators are targeting.

Now this is becoming a MBO or a take-private transaction using the DAO’s own treasury as the buyout fund.

A practical question for the community and @kpk @nesk.kpk

Post-revamp, BAL has no governance rights, no fee share, no emissions, and all operational decisions made by an identifiable 12.5-person team actively operating in multiple jurisdictions through a BVI entity serving global users.

Under MiCA’s “fully decentralised” exemption test, this structure no longer qualifies. Under the SEC’s Howey framework, a token whose value depends entirely on the efforts of an identifiable team is the textbook definition.

MiCA compliance costs run €200-500K plus ongoing legal. SEC enforcement defence runs $2-5M. Has the runway analysis accounted for regulatory compliance costs in its 9-year projection?

Because right now the proposals spend $3.6-6.2M on buybacks while simultaneously building the exact structure that triggers regulatory obligations the protocol has never budgeted for.

The irony: the current system with distributed veBAL governance, emission direction by external builders, and decentralised fee distribution based on a voting system is the strongest defence against both MiCA and Howey.

The revamp removes every element that supports that defence.

How do the extra regulation costs impact the runaway timeframe?

PS.: For those that felt annoyed by my messages and DM’d me…

Healthy Community debate on tokenomics changes that directly impact locked veBAL positions is not an annoyance. it is a necessary component of decentralized governance on a blockchain that exists to resist censorship.

Please respond the questions that remainin unanswered with arguments, data, points.

the community will benefit hearing that before voting.

As Hegel observed healthy debate begins with a thesis, the thesis meets its antithesis and resolves in higher synthesis.

In governance this process requires transparent engagement with substantive questions rather than the dismissal of the community member asking questions that deserve answers.

[0xDanko]

Hey @sagix This is spammy and looks like a lot of AI slop and hallucination. I appreciate the participation and hear your pain points, but I’d appreciate it if you could put your thoughts in order and participate in governance with some clarity that makes sense for others to engage. Then we can push the bill in a healthy discussion.

[sagix]

hi @0xDanko This is not spam…. Calling thoughtful disagreement “spam” or slop lowers the discourse, especially in a governance forum where alternatives should be encouraged. Please adhere to the forum guidelines that explicitly ban “ad hominem attacks and responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content”

My points stand on their merits. Calling them hallucinations is disrespectful. If they were, they would be easily addressable. The loud silence of the unanswered questions proves they are the opposite of hallucinations. They are highly grounded and based FACTS.

I do not need to lower the discussion level or attack who is doing so…

I have proposed an alternative that does not include a golden parachutes for some, that is not a MBO proposal with treasury money, that does not include preferential treatment for some community members and does not risk regulator scrutiny costs. And I asked about costs that were not considered and about the consequences of a de-facto major centralization of the protocol.

My alternative proposal is structured exactly like the original BIP (Summary, Motivation/Where We Agree/Disagree, Specification, tables, rationales, linked data). It’s not hallucination, and any careful reader can obviously see that when reading it with the due diligence a cohesive proposal that is way better than the original proposal deserves.

I welcome engagement with substance on the merits of my proposal and responds my questions rather than its style and respects all community members here.

@sagix

PS.: For those that felt annoyed by my messages and DM’d me…

Healthy Community debate on tokenomics changes that directly impact locked veBAL positions is not an annoyance. it is a necessary component of decentralized governance on a blockchain that exists to resist censorship.

Please respond the questions that remainin unanswered with arguments, data, points.

the community will benefit hearing that before voting.

As Hegel observed healthy debate begins with a thesis, the thesis meets its antithesis and resolves in higher synthesis.

In governance this process requires transparent engagement with substantive questions rather than the dismissal of the community member asking questions that deserve answers.

[0xDanko]

I’ve read through your comments across the various threads. To clarify, my intent as a steward here was never to disrespect your perspective or dismiss your points, but in governance, when a debate becomes fragmented across multiple threads, it becomes difficult for the broader community to track the discussion. That can cause the bad effect of pushing people away, and decision-making to a narrower group of people and insiders. My goal was to move to a structured debate the DAO can actually vote on, so I’ll use your alternative proposal to address the merits you’ve raised (I hope to cover the most relevant).

[sagix]

ok, responded there. agree it can be confusing. for everyone’s convenience it is here # [BIP-XXX] BAL Tokenomics Revamp: ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL - #7 by sagix

[Odin]

Listen to @sagix before you kill your entire ecosystem and eliminate all your support from all angles and corners (alliance program, Aura, Stakedao, Paladin)…in exchange for a notion of security, in funding your core team for 9 years.

Take the 4-6 years gamble, and reform veBAL without killing your entire ecosystem.

Take away fee emissions to veBAL, and all the things @sagix mentioned in this article.

The alternative approarch is guaranteed to kill your ecosystem but fund your core team. Shedding your ecosystem will create a circular loop, where no one at all will support you. Including myself.

Your codebase V3 codebase isn’t valuable, it can be easily forked. The only value you hold is the at this point is the remaining trust of your ecosystem, and investors that are left.

I know you’re under a lot of pressure and stress right now, but listen to me. Your best bet as a project, is to reform veBAL (and downsize your team like you’ve done).

If it goes bust in 4 years and you’re unable to recover, shucks…there should be a bull market coming up sometime soon, and you’ll probably be just fine and with your ecosystem.

But if you buy out now…it’s death, because you’ll have a core team but nobody will support. There’s no investment opportunity, there’s no incentives coming out of pools, there’s no codebase advantage (it’s all source-available and other teams will implement it), there’s no incentives for anyone to support your protocol, you still have to take 25% fees from LPs (which is still pretty high), there’s centralized team control, you will lose everything guaranteed…

While paying yourselves 8-9 years of salaries sounds comforting, your best bet is to hope for a bull market, balance out the veBAL to tune it to ~6-7 years of runway (and upon bullmarket you’ll be fine again)

You have to rely on these things: future investors boosting runway, upcoming bull market boosting runway, ecosystem partners boosting participation, low fees attracting LPs, incentives attracting LPs…

This proposal will be a death blow and admission of defeat if passed, essentially looting the treasury for the remaining core team with no potential or ecosystem left. I know it’s tempting to do, to admit defeat and get those 8-9 years of runway…

Half of the proposal is good (cutting the Labs and downsizing), but listen to @sagix on the other half, and rework the veBAL system if you truly want to make it.

[0xDanko]

There was an important flag on this proposal by @gosuto, which is technically specifying what will be accounted for as “circulating supply” for the purposes of calculating NAV.

Snapshot: March 23rd, 6:34 UTC
Circulating Supply is Total Supply minus:

• DAO Treasury 0x0EFcCBb9E2C09Ea29551879bd9Da32362b32fc89
• BLabs Vesting Safe 0xCDcEBF1f28678eb4A1478403BA7f34C94F7dDBc5
• BLabs Fundraise Fund 0xB129F73f1AFd3A49C701241F374dB17AE63B20Eb
• tetuBAL (permalocked) 0x9cC56Fa7734DA21aC88F6a816aF10C5b898596Ce

I vibe-coded a dashboard here, wich for the purposes of this proposal, should be fairly accurate (DYOR).

[maxyz.xyz]

Edit by MAXYZ:

• assign BIP ID
• add PR with payloads