DeFi Bribes Are on the Rise - Decrypt (2024)

DeFi Bribes Are on the Rise - Decrypt (1)

Last week’s Decrypting DeFi dispatch gave a general rough-and-tumble overview of what’s happening with Curve and the so-called “Curve Wars.” If you haven’t read it yet, check it out here.

To recap: DeFi projects are scrambling to get their hands on more Curve tokens (CRV) by first getting their hands on vote-locked Curve tokens (veCRV).

With these vote-locked tokens, projects can then vote to have more CRV tokens distributed to the liquidity pool of their choice. And because the supply of CRV is capped, there will only ever be so many (3.3 billion in total, to be precise).

Thus, with a finite supply, it's essentially an accumulation race with extra steps: Acquire CRV, lock it up in exchange for veCRV, then vote to distribute CRV tokens to a specific pool, and earn more CRV. Rinse and repeat.

Amidst all this, another market is emerging: bribes.

These days, several secondary platforms all enable bribes in one form or another. First, let’s break down how the mechanism works in general.

Let’s say you are a large liquidity provider on Curve Finance, and you want to increase the amount of CRV rewards that pool is earning as you hang out and, well, provide liquidity. But you only have so much CRV (and thus only so much veCRV-based sway in this community).

So, you decide to set up a bribe of sorts.

You essentially say, “Hey, if you use your veCRV holdings to vote for my pool to receive more rewards, I’ll give you another token in exchange.” If users think this other token is more valuable, then it’s a good deal.

You can also expand this to the protocol level too.

Let’s say a project is looking to increase the liquidity for its native token. Naturally, the easiest way to do that is to offer the most attractive rewards to prospective LPs a la yield farming. If you can offer them a high APY for adding liquidity to your newly launched cryptocurrency, then you can attract lots of new money and make your new crypto very liquid very quickly.

Andre Cronje, the creator of Yearn Finance and a ton of other DeFi projects, built a platform to execute this exact kind of bribe. Called “bribe.crv.finance,” the website is essentially a portal to all things CRV bribes. It lets bribers create offers, and bribees claim offers.

But since this idea is already well known (the Curve Wars did technically kick off way back in 2020), there are already multiple DeFi bribe platforms.

And perhaps the most successful of these platforms has been Convex.

Today, it owns more than 53% of all CRV tokens currently in circulation, and was built specifically to acquire as much CRV as possible by offering the highest rewards to users.

Here’s how it works: When users lock up their CRV tokens (or even LP tokens from Curve) on Convex, they receive another token called cvxCRV as a sort of receipt for their deposit.Holding this token entitles users to (1) trading fees from Curve (remember every trade on Curve generates 0.04% in fees), (2) Convex’s native token called CVX, and (3) the maximum reward possible for a specific Curve pool.

Regarding the third point, if you check back on that image above, which shows a variable APY in CRV, the reason it's variable is because not everyone is able to enjoy the full range without tapping a feature on Curve called “Boosting.” To do this, though, you need a ton of veCRV, and it's not really viable for small holders.

Anyway, because Convex has pooled all this CRV (and veCRV) through attractive bonuses and put it back to work, they have the ability to essentially max boost all rewards for every Convex user.

And that’s creating a bit of a flywheel in even more CRV accrual.Now there’s even a rush to acquire CVX so that holders will have proxy control over Curve.

The next time you see the term “governance extractable value” being thrown around on Twitter, this is pretty much what they’re referring to: acquiring huge amounts of a project’s native governance token to take it over.

We wanted democratized finance, instead we got 3 layers of bribe protocols ultimately controlling plutocratic protocol governance systems.

Color me skeptical this is the end state of DeFi.

— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) January 11, 2022

Whether the troubling growth of DeFi bribes is truly the “end state of DeFi” or simply its next chapter is for the market to decide. Or the regulators?

Decrypting DeFi is our weekly DeFi newsletter, always led by this essay. Subscribers to our emails get to read the essay first, the day before it goes on our site.Subscribe here.

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DeFi Bribes Are on the Rise - Decrypt (2024)

FAQs

What is bribing in DeFi? ›

Bribes are given on DeFi platforms where protocols have their tokens in a liquidity pool. For example, if a protocol has its token listed on a DeFi platform like Wombat, they will offer rewards to the governance token holders of the platform's liquidity pool.

What is the curve wars? ›

The Curve Wars can be described as the competition amongst several DeFi protocols to get a share of the enormous liquidity in the Curve Finance ecosystem; the hustle to accumulate veCRV, Curve's governance token, and decide which pool gets Curve's reward boost.

What is bribe protocol? ›

Bribe Protocol. @BribeProtocol. creates DAO infrastructure tooling to incentivize voting Depositors stake their governance tokens to earn income & bidders borrow the staked votes to support or reject governance proposals.

How does convex bribing work? ›

The Bribing Economy

Convex has a governance voting token called CVX to decide which pools the Curve rewards are directed to. Other protocols attempt to incentivize CVX holders to vote for their pool by offering payment. (usually in the form of their native token)

Why DeFi is so risky? ›

Like all software, DeFi protocols have two main software risks – coding errors, "bugs," that may cause the software to malfunction, and security vulnerabilities that allow thieves, "hackers," to break in and steal funds from the protocol.

Why is DeFi high risk? ›

Faulty smart contracts are among the most common risks of DeFi. Malicious actors eager to steal users' funds can exploit smart contracts that have weak coding. Most decentralized exchanges enable trading through the use of liquidity pools. These pools generally lock two cryptocurrencies in a smart contract.

Who is leading the curve War? ›

Convex has emerged as a leader in the Curve Wars, but with a different motive. While many projects' goals are to attract liquidity for its pool, Convex is a layer on the Curve model that makes it easier for retail users to earn by providing liquidity.

Who is winning curve Wars? ›

As all these protocols compete, the overall winner is $CRV, whose price has risen by 70% over the last month. The Curve War isn't ending anytime soon and it will get even more fierce if more competitors come into play and the protocols are forced to increase user incentives.

What are the 3 curves? ›

The triple curve involves 3 distinct scoliotic curves, occurring in the cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae or in the thoracic, thoracolumbar and lumbar regions. In this type of scoliosis, the most significant curve is usually the middle one.

What are the 6 principles of bribery? ›

The Ministry of Justice, in its Guidance on the Bribery Act 2010, presents six principles for implementing adequate procedures to prevent bribery. These are: Proportionality; Top-Level Commitment; Risk Assessment; Due Diligence; Communication; and Monitoring and Review.

What are the three elements of bribery? ›

Bribery is defined generally as corrupt solicitation, acceptance, or transfer of value in exchange for official action.

How do you resolve bribery? ›

10 Ways to Reduce Bribery & Corruption Risks
  1. Update anti-bribery & anti-corruption policies. ...
  2. Get the tone right from the top. ...
  3. Embed ABAC principles in corporate culture. ...
  4. Ensure gifts & hospitality meet key criteria. ...
  5. Conduct due diligence on all third parties. ...
  6. Watch out for bribery & corruption red flags.
Mar 21, 2023

How do you identify a bribe? ›

Bribery and corruption can be detected via:
  1. Forensic audits.
  2. Anti-corruption programs, which are policies and procedures that (among other things) help assess and deal with bribery and corruption.
  3. Looking out for red flags, such as one contractor constantly winning a bid.

Why bribing doesn't work? ›

Using bribes makes children hyper-focused on external motivators (such as candy, prizes, or treats) instead of internal motivators (satisfaction, pride, and accomplishment). Because children's motivation is external rather than internal, they become more likely to rush through their work in order to gain their reward.

How much money is considered a bribe? ›

A person commits an offense by giving or offering anything of value in an attempt to influence, for the benefit of the organization or government, business transactions with a total value of $5,000 or more.

What is the biggest problem in DeFi? ›

Top 5 most common issues encountered in DeFi
  1. A low balance of native tokens (ETH, BNB, MATIC, etc.): ...
  2. Using a low slippage tolerance when swapping a volatile token pair. ...
  3. Misunderstanding of the approval/unlock mechanism. ...
  4. Sending tokens to the wrong wallet application. ...
  5. Lack of liquidity awareness.

What is the dark side of DeFi? ›

However, DeFi projects are still quite risky, particularly in terms of hacking. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in smart contracts to steal users' assets or mint stablecoins and sell them on DEXs.

What is the safest DeFi? ›

ZUG, Switzerland, June 17, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bancor 3 has received a 98% safety score from security ratings firm DeFiSafety, the highest score of any DeFi protocol, ranking Bancor as the safest DeFi protocol in the industry.

Is DeFi a pyramid scheme? ›

A federal grand jury in the District of Oregon returned an indictment today charging four founders of Forsage, a purportedly decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency investment platform, for their roles in a global Ponzi and pyramid scheme that raised approximately $340 million from victim-investors.

Is DeFi a threat to banks? ›

Our spot survey found that 36% of respondents consider DeFi more of an opportunity rather than an existential threat to banks.

Why DeFi is changing the world? ›

DeFi protocols and platforms are distributed across the world on blockchains that facilitate international financial transactions. And as there are no intermediaries involved, DeFi applications allow transactions to be conducted at very low costs and sometimes at no costs, allowing cheap currency conversions.

When did the curve wars start? ›

The Curve Wars began at some point in 2020, and reached a hostile climax just recently as Terra USD tried to wipe out MakerDAO's DAI stablecoin. For the past two years, DeFi protocols have sprung up to offer the best bribes in the hope that users will provide them with liquidity.

Why is the shape of the liquidity curve convex? ›

Convex controls the liquidity incentives on Curve because they own so much veCRV. So to direct Curve liquidity, protocols want to control CVX votes.

What are curves examples in real life? ›

For instance, a circle, parabola, hyperbola, and ellipse are all examples of curves. Some of the real-life examples include; the path of a roller coaster, the turning point of a railway track, paths of a road particularly in hilly areas, and many more.

Does the spine support the skull? ›

The neck region is the Cervical Spine. This region consists of seven vertebrae, which are abbreviated C1 through C7 (top to bottom). These vertebrae protect the brain stem and the spinal cord, support the skull, and allow for a wide range of head movement.

What is the basic theory of curves? ›

In differential geometry, the fundamental theorem of space curves states that every regular curve in three-dimensional space, with non-zero curvature, has its shape (and size or scale) completely determined by its curvature and torsion.

What is passive bribery? ›

What is passive bribery? The offence of soliciting, agreeing to receive or accepting a bribe is deemed a passive form of bribery. Intriguingly, if a person has made their intentions of receiving a bribe very clear, their actions could still be regarded as passive bribery.

What is a red flag in bribery and corruption? ›

A “red flag” is a fact, event, or set of circ*mstances, or other information that may indicate a potential legal compliance concern for illegal or unethical business conduct, particularly with regard to corrupt practices and non-compliance with anti-corruption laws.

What is the key element in bribery? ›

Elements of a Bribery Charge

At the most fundamental level, charges of bribery need only to prove that some official benefit (such as a vote, recommendation, decision, or use of political influence) was offered or solicited by a government official in exchange for a sum of money or something else of value.

What are the 4 types of corruption? ›

Corruption can be defined and categorized in different ways. The most common types or categories of corruption are supply versus demand corruption, grand versus petty corruption, conventional versus unconventional corruption and public versus private corruption.

What is the most common form of bribery? ›

Some of the more common instances of bribery include:
  • Bribery of Witnesses in Court.
  • Bribery of a Public Official.
  • Bribery of Doctors.
  • Bribery of Foreign Officials.
Jul 14, 2015

What are 2 examples of bribery? ›

Some examples of bribes might include:
  • A construction guaranteeing an elected official ten percent in kickback money in exchange for a large public infrastructure contract.
  • A manufacturing firm paying foreign officials money for preferential treatment or to smuggle unregistered goods across a border.

Why do people accept bribery? ›

A new study from Carnegie Mellon University suggests that greed, and not the willingness to return the favor, is the main reason people give in to bribery. But the research also finds there are times when the almighty buck can be ignored and effects of a bribe can be lessened.

Is bribery ever acceptable? ›

Business relationships rely on trust. Bribery and corruption abuses that trust, and goods and services are not procured in a clear, ethical or transparent way. For this reason, an organisation or its employees should never accept or pay bribes, including facilitation payments.

What is a good sentence for bribery? ›

That inquiry found the bribery claim to be unfounded. We know there was no bribery and no corruption. Six officials are already suspended on bribery claims. Eurocrats and business chiefs were held on bribery and forgery claims.

How can you tell if someone is corrupted? ›

Stay alert – spot the warning signs
  1. Secrets. ...
  2. Decisions that repeatedly benefit a partner. ...
  3. Centralised power. ...
  4. Conflicts of interest and dual roles. ...
  5. Dubious invoices. ...
  6. Very large payments. ...
  7. Very large entertainment expenses. ...
  8. Deficiencies or mistakes in financial reporting.

What are the red flags for third parties? ›

Large or frequent political contributions made by the third party. Private meetings between the third party and government officials. A propensity for giving lavish gifts or hospitality to government officials. Insistence on dealing with government officials without your company's participation.

What is a reverse bribe? ›

The goal of "reverse bribery," Hamm writes, is to disassociate personal success and normal, expected behavior from special “treats.”

Is too honest to accept a bribe? ›

The correct answer is 'so honest that he cannot accept a bribe'.

Is it hard to prove bribery? ›

These crimes are the result of secret deals, sealed with whispered conversations, quick handshakes, and money paid “under the table.” Because of the secretive nature of bribes and shady deals, such crimes are often difficult to detect and even more difficult to prove without the assistance of concerned citizens.

What are the consequences for bribing? ›

Bribery Penalties

The penalties for bribery of a public official includes a fine of up to three times the value of the bribe, and imprisonment for up to 15 years in a federal penitentiary. A conviction can also disqualify the individual from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

Is giving a gift a bribe? ›

Difference Between a Lawful Gift and Bribe

A bribe is a quid pro quo situation where an individual gives a gift, something of value, to a public official with the intent that it influences the public official's actions. The public official does not have to accept that for the individual to be prosecuted for a bribe.

Is it legal for a U.S. citizen to pay a bribe? ›

FCPA makes it unlawful for a U.S. person or company to offer, pay, or promise to pay money to any foreign official for the purpose of obtaining or retaining business.

What is the difference between a bribe and a kickback? ›

A bribe is usually defined as the giving or receiving of a “thing of value” to corruptly influence the actions of another, most commonly to influence a contract award or the execution of a contract. A “kickback” is a bribe paid incrementally by the contractor as it is paid, usually an agreed percentage of the contract.

What does bribe mean in crypto? ›

So, you decide to set up a bribe of sorts. You essentially say, “Hey, if you use your veCRV holdings to vote for my pool to receive more rewards, I'll give you another token in exchange.” If users think this other token is more valuable, then it's a good deal. You can also expand this to the protocol level too.

What is an example of a bribery? ›

Bribery occurs when a person offers something of value to another person in order to receive something in exchange. For instance, your mom might bribe you into coming home for the holidays by offering to cook your favorite food. The food is what she is offering, and your attendance is the exchange.

What is bribing and corruption? ›

What is Bribery and Corruption? Corruption is dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. Bribery is offering, giving or receiving anything of value with the intention of inducing a person to act or to reward a person for having acted.

How are people making money with DeFi? ›

This platform enables depositors to lend its native stablecoin, DAI, and earn interest as they would with a centralised bank. Maker generates revenue via its stability fee which is the interest charged to borrowers, as well as taking a cut on every liquidation.

How do bribes work? ›

Overview: Bribery refers to the offering, giving, soliciting, or receiving of any item of value as a means of influencing the actions of an individual holding a public or legal duty.

Why is bribery wrong? ›

Simply because it creates a situation of power play. The Infancy And Early Life Of Jesus Although the United States has anti-corruption laws companies continue to use bribes as a way of advancing a business deals. Bribery is an unethical practice, as it increases wealth inequality and supports corrupt regimes.

What does sh*tcoin mean in crypto? ›

The term sh*tcoin make reference to all those useless cryptocurrencies that exist in the market. Cryptocurrencies that were created without a defined purpose, offered at speculative prices, or that simply have no use because they are a cheap copy of other projects.

How do you identify bribery? ›

Workplace bribery & corruption red flags
  1. Unnecessary or inappropriate purchases.
  2. Questionable invoices.
  3. Continued acceptance of poorer quality.
  4. Conflicts of interest.
  5. Unqualified third parties.
  6. Incomplete travel & expenses.
Feb 2, 2023

Are there two types of bribery? ›

The two types of bribery are active and passive bribery. Active bribery occurs when a party offers a bribe to another in exchange for a favor. Passive bribery occurs when a party solicits a bribe from another in exchange for a favor.

What are the 3 types of corruption? ›

Corruption can be defined and categorized in different ways. The most common types or categories of corruption are supply versus demand corruption, grand versus petty corruption, conventional versus unconventional corruption and public versus private corruption.

Is bribing illegal in the US? ›

Yes, bribery is illegal. Bribery can be a crime under federal or state law, depending on who and what is involved. Most states have several types of bribery charges, such as bribery of public officials, witnesses, jurors, corporations, and sports officials.

Can you become a millionaire from DeFi? ›

Making a million with DeFi

After an initial investment of 1,000 USDT/USDC and 20,000 YLD, Tier 5 users would need to invest 1,100 USDT/USDC every month for 15 years, and, voila!

Why is DeFi such a big deal? ›

It is enabling developers to create new financial products such as decentralised banking, decentralised money markets and decentralised asset management firms. DeFi aims to be 10x better, faster and cheaper compared with today's financial services.

What is the average salary of DeFi? ›

Avg. Base Salary (USD)

Defi Solutions pays an average salary of $1,113,272 and salaries range from a low of $967,600 to a high of $1,278,093.

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