Curvecrypto Curvecrypto liquidity gauges
Curve's liquidity gauges measure staked liquidity and distribute active incentives to providers in pools or lending vaults. To qualify for those rewards, you stake the relevant LP or vault tokens in the gauge. For CRV emissions, the gauge also needs DAO approval and weight from veCRV votes.
- Position tokens
- Pool LP tokens or lending-vault tokens, staked in their associated gauge.
- Reward types
- CRV emissions, third-party token incentives, or both, when active for that gauge.
- Weight update schedule
- Gauge-weight changes take effect every Thursday at 00:00 UTC.
- CRV boost
- Locking CRV for vote-escrowed CRV (veCRV) can boost CRV rewards by up to 2.5x. External rewards don't receive this boost.
Pool positions and gauge rewards
A pool deposit gives a liquidity provider LP tokens representing a share of that pool's assets. Pools and lending vaults can operate without a gauge, which is a separate contract for measuring stakes and distributing incentives.
Swap fees come from trading activity in the pool. Gauge incentives add another reward source when they're active. Holding LP tokens alone doesn't satisfy the staking requirement for gauge rewards.
CRV allocation and external incentives
Gauge deployment is permissionless for Curve pools and lending vaults. External incentives don't need a governance vote, and a newly deployed gauge can distribute them when they're active. Rebasing tokens aren't recommended as external rewards because they lose their rebases in this setup.
CRV allocation has additional governance requirements. A gauge needs a successful DAO vote to enter the
GaugeController
before veCRV holders can assign it gauge weight. Approval establishes eligibility, while weight voting determines its allocation of CRV emissions. Within a gauge, distribution reflects each provider's liquidity share and, for CRV, any applicable boost.
Finding the relevant gauge contract
For a liquidity pool, the
MetaRegistry
's
get_gauge
method provides a gauge-address lookup. Several gauge versions exist; the liquidity-gauge documentation primarily covers
LiquidityGaugeV6
.
The documented factory's
deploy_gauge
function requires a pool that the factory recognizes, no gauge already recorded for that pool, and a configured gauge implementation. Those contract checks are separate from DAO approval for CRV emissions.
Checks for your first gauge stake
- If you're using pool LP tokens, match the pool to its gauge through the registry lookup.
- For CRV rewards, confirm DAO approval, effective veCRV gauge weight, and enabled CRV emissions. A killed LiquidityGaugeV6 stops new CRV accrual, while active external rewards can continue. For third-party incentives, check which reward tokens are active.
- If those checks pass and you already hold the position tokens, complete any required approval for the gauge to transfer your chosen amount. Submit the gauge stake for your address. After the staking transaction succeeds, confirm that your staked balance increased by that amount.
- If the gauge or active incentives remain unclear, stop before staking and keep holding the position tokens. Unstaked tokens don't qualify for gauge rewards.
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