> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://the-heist-1.gitbook.io/the-heist-docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://the-heist-1.gitbook.io/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/gauge-farms-and-voting.md). # Phase 6 — Gauge Farms & Voting Trading fees alone aren't much of a reason to lock your money into a liquidity pool. Gauge Farms is the extra incentive on top: stake your liquidity position here and earn MERRY for it. Gauge Voting is how the community — not a fixed schedule someone set once and forgot — decides which pools get the biggest share of those rewards each week. ## Two steps, not one This is the part that's easy to miss: **you can't farm LOOT, WETH, or MERRY directly.** Farming always takes two separate steps, in order. ```mermaid flowchart LR A[Step 1\nDeposit a token pair\ne.g. LOOT + WETH] --> B[Receive a share token back\ne.g. vLOOT-WETH] B --> C[Step 2\nStake that share token\nin Gauge Farms] C --> D[Earn MERRY\non a halving schedule] ``` **Step 1 — become a liquidity provider.** Open the **Trade** page, pick a pool (LOOT/WETH or MERRY/WETH), and switch to the **Create Liquidity** tab next to Swap. Deposit both sides of the pair — say, some LOOT and some WETH — and you'll get a share token back (labeled `vLOOT-WETH` or `vMERRY-WETH` in your wallet). That share token is your receipt: it represents your slice of the pool, and it's already earning you a cut of ordinary trading fees the moment you hold it, before you've farmed anything at all. **Step 2 — stake that receipt.** Take the share token from step 1 to the **Farms** page, and deposit it into the matching pool there. Only now does it start earning MERRY on top of the trading fees it was already collecting. If you skip step 1, there's nothing to bring to the Farms page — this is the single most common point of confusion, so it's worth saying plainly: **liquidity comes from the Trade page, farming happens on the Farms page, and they're two different actions.** MERRY rewards follow a fixed schedule that starts fast and slows down over roughly 24 months — see [MERRY's emission schedule](/the-heist-docs/tokenomics/merry.md) for the exact numbers. Once that 75,000 MERRY is fully paid out, that's it; no more ever gets created for farming. There's no deposit fee and no withdrawal fee at either step, ever — moving in and out of a farming position costs nothing extra. ## Weekly gauge voting Every week, a vote decides how next week's MERRY rewards get split across the available pools — some pools get a bigger cut, some smaller, based purely on how stakers vote. ```mermaid flowchart TD A[Stake MERRY in the Hideout] --> B[You automatically get\nvoting power] B --> C[Vote window opens\nonce a week] C --> D[Split your voting power\nacross the candidate pools] D --> E[Window closes] E --> F[Anyone can trigger\nthe tally] F --> G{Do LOOT/WETH + MERRY/WETH\ntogether fall below 30%?} G -->|Yes| H[Automatically topped back up to 30%\n-- other pools scaled down to make room] G -->|No| I[Vote result applied exactly as cast] H & I --> J[New reward split takes effect] ``` A few things worth knowing about how this works: * **You don't need a separate voting token.** Your voting power is exactly the same loyalty-weighted stake you already earn Hideout rewards with — the longer and more consistently you've stayed staked, the more your vote counts, automatically. * **You're voting on a shortlist, not every pool that exists.** A small committee curates which pools are even eligible, but they can't just add or remove one on a whim — every change has to be proposed publicly and sit through a waiting period before it takes effect, and once that wait is over, literally anyone can flip the switch, not just the committee. * **The two home pools (LOOT/WETH and MERRY/WETH) can never be voted down to nothing.** They're guaranteed at least 30% of rewards between them, no matter what. If a vote would push them lower, the math automatically pulls proportionally from every other pool to top them back up — every time, the same way, with no one deciding it case by case. * **Nobody has to run the vote for it to count.** Once the weekly window closes, anyone at all can trigger the step that actually applies the results — there's no gatekeeper who has to show up for a finished vote to take effect. ## Why voting power comes from staking, not a separate token Tying voting power to your existing Hideout stake means one thing counts for everything: the same loyalty that earns you a bigger share of print batches and dividends also earns you a louder voice in where future rewards go. There's nothing extra to buy or farm just to get a say. ## Why a shortlist instead of a free-for-all Letting every pool compete for votes would turn this into a popularity contest anyone could brigade with a pile of fresh capital, regardless of whether the pool does anything real. A curated, publicly-changeable shortlist keeps the candidates genuine while leaving the actual split of rewards entirely up to stakers. Next: [Protocol-Owned Liquidity](/the-heist-docs/how-it-works/protocol-owned-liquidity.md) — how the protocol builds its own permanent stake in these same pools, on top of whatever regular users like you provide. --- # Agent Instructions This documentation is published with GitBook. GitBook is the documentation platform designed so that both humans and AI agents can read, navigate, and reason over technical content effectively. Learn more at gitbook.com. ## Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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