How Caper approaches this Pendle spent four years engineering elaboratebuilding escrow to make governance wei…or a liquid, tradeable stake. CA caper (/wiki/foundations/what-i…tarts from the other side: it never issues a lockable or tradeable governance token at all. In a caper a member's vote weight (/wiki/governance/voting) is (held × votes) / (vote_supply × circulation) – the amount of the caper's token held, multiplied by a soulbound, non-transferable vote record that is minted one per ballot cast and by nothing else, andhas no lock at all. A member's vote weight (/wiki/governance/voting) comes from the caper's tokens they hold together with the soulbound (/wiki/dao-governance/concepts/membership/soulbound-tokens) votes they earn by casting ballots, which can never be sent, sold, or locked to another wallet (verified in contracts/core/src/caper_dao.rs: the vote token is DIVISIBILITY_MAXIMUM and minted straight into the member's account, and compute_vote_weight is that product). Because the record is accrued in the member's own wallet rather than locked up or bought off someone else. With nothing locked and no weight to rent, there is no lock to optimize,se and no bribe market to build on top, and no liquid governance token to rent – the failure modes Pendle, Curve, and Convex spent years fighting simply have no surface to attach to. The same weight also settles the exit:. The same weight sets a member's fair share of the treasury onwhen they exit (/wiki/dao-governance/co…ip/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) uses the identical (held × votes) / (vote_supply × circulation) helper, so the number, so the measure that governs andis the number that cashes out are the same – governance and skin-in-the-game are one quantity, not two tokens to reconcileone that pays out. (This is a design contrast, not a claim that; Caper does no yield tokenization.)

Pendle Finance is a decentrali…e on a floating one, or hedge —– the on-chain analogue of an i…g-the-need-for-long-lockups) —– making it a live data point i…etreat from the ve-lock model.

vePENDLE: gauge voting, the Cu…le governance ran on vePENDLE —– vote-escrowed PENDLE, the sam…direct emissions. Every epoch —– snapshotted each Thursday at…echanics/Mechanisms/sPENDLE) —– vePENDLE holders voted to cha…oth its power and its problem.

January 2026: retiring the loc… in the game without the trap —– a 14-day withdrawal period (…the hood. Manual gauge voting —– the heart of the ve-model —– was replaced with an algorit…holders governing the formula.

Where it sits: the post-ve tur…ted 2022–2024 DeFi governance —– Curve (/wiki/daos/dexs/curve… and the bribe markets on top —– is being unwound by the very …voting) . Pendle's own number —– 80% of supply sitting out —– is a clean statement of the p…rather than retiring the lock.

How Caper approaches this Pen…/ (vote_supply × circulation) —– the amount of the caper's tok…quid governance token to rent —– the failure modes Pendle, Cur… that cashes out are the same —– governance and skin-in-the-ga…aper does yield tokenization.)

Where it sits: the post-ve tur…oting/token-weighted-voting) .Pendle's own number — 80% of s…rather than retiring the lock.

How Caper approaches this Pen…_vote_weight is that product).Because the record is accrued …aper does yield tokenization.)

How Caper approaches this Pen… settles the exit: a member's pro-rata share of the treasury on exit…aper does yield tokenization.)

How Caper approaches this Pen…inted one per ballot cast and 0.01 per XRD of gross trade valuby nothing else, and can never be sent, sold…aper does yield tokenization.)

How Caper approaches this Pen…he vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONEMAXIMUM and minted straight into the votmember's account, and compute_vote…aper does yield tokenization.)

How Caper approaches this Pen…vote record that is minted one-per-vote ballot cast and 0.01 per XRD of gross trade value, and can never be sent, sold, …oduct). Because the record is earned by participating rather than bought or escrowedaccrued in the member's own wallet rather than locked up or bought off someone else, there is no lock to optimize…aper does yield tokenization.)

Project Pendle Finance Catego…) Related Curve (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) · Balancer (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/balancer-dao) · Convex (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/convex-finance)

Pendle Finance is a decentrali…row gauge systems (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) in DeFi, and …etreat from the ve-lock model.

vePENDLE: gauge voting, the Cu…me veCRV pattern (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) Curve pioneer…ghted, lock-to-vote (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighte… the " Curve wars (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) " and the Convex (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/convex-finance) liqui…oth its power and its problem.

Where it sits: the post-ve tur…e call: Balancer (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/balancer-dao) voted (BIP…vernance — Curve (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) , Balancer, Pendle, Convex (/wiki/daos/organizations/lending/convex-finance) , and … holder disengaged (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/voting/token-weighte…o rent by the epoch (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/fundamentals/on-chai… Base, Aerodrome (/wiki/daos/organizations/dexs/aerodrome-finance) kept …rather than retiring the lock.

How Caper approaches this Pen…wallet (verified in contracts/core/src/caper_dao.rs: the vote tok…e treasury on exit (/wiki/daos-governance/concepts/membership/rage-quit…aper does yield tokenization.)

Project Pendle Finance Catego…26) Related Curve (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) · Balancer (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/balancer-dao) · Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/lending/convex-finance)

Pendle Finance is a decentrali…scrow gauge systems (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) in DeFi, and in J…etreat from the ve-lock model.

vePENDLE: gauge voting, the Cu…same veCRV pattern (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) Curve pioneered. …ghted, lock-to-vote (/wiki/daos/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) design…ed the " Curve wars (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) " and the Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/lending/convex-finance) liquid-locke…oth its power and its problem.

Where it sits: the post-ve tur…ame call: Balancer (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/balancer-dao) voted (BIP-919…governance — Curve (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/curve-dao) , Balancer, Pendle, Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/lending/convex-finance) , and the bri… holder disengaged (/wiki/daos/concepts/voting/token-weighted-voting) . Pendl…o rent by the epoch (/wiki/daos/concepts/fundamentals/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governan…on Base, Aerodrome (/wiki/dao/ecosystems/organizations/dexs/aerodrome-finance) kept the …rather than retiring the lock.

How Caper approaches this Pen…e treasury on exit (/wiki/daos/concepts/membership/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) us…aper does yield tokenization.)

Project Pendle Finance Catego… (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vesPENDLE) (legacy) → sPENDLE (…/dao/ecosystem/convex-finance)

vePENDLE: gauge voting, the Cu… (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vesPENDLE) ; voting weight scaled… (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vesPENDLE) — vePENDLE holders vo… (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vesPENDLE) from the pools they b… (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vesPENDLE) tied each pool's maxi…oth its power and its problem.

Where it sits: the post-ve tur…ain-vs-off-chain-governance) . Not every ve-fork is unwinding, though: on Base, Aerodrome (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/aerodrome-finance) kept the ve(3,3) model, became the chain's dominant DEX, and in 2026 is consolidating Velodrome under it rather than retiring the lock.

Project Pendle Finance Category Yield-tokenization protocol · vote-escrow → liquid-staking governance Chains Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and other EVM networks ( multichain (https://docs.pendle.finance/) ) Went live Ethereum mainnet, 2021 (https://www.pendle.finance/) Governance token PENDLE → vePENDLE (https://docs.pendle.finance/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vePENDLE) (legacy) → sPENDLE (https://medium.com/pendle/introducing-spendle-8479744dfdf8) (Jan 2026) Emissions Inflationary; ~1.1%/week decay to a 2%/yr terminal tail from April 2026 (https://docs.pendle.finance/pendle-v2/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/Tokenomics) TVL at sPENDLE launch over $3B (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/20/pendle-introduces-spendle-removing-the-need-for-long-lockups) (Jan 2026) Related Curve (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/curve-dao) · Balancer (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/balancer-dao) · Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/convex-finance)

Pendle Finance is a decentralized protocol that tokenizes future yield (https://docs.pendle.finance/) : it wraps a yield-bearing asset and splits it into a Principal Token (PT), redeemable 1:1 at maturity, and a Yield Token (YT), which captures the variable yield until then. Traded against each other on a purpose-built AMM, PT and YT let users lock in a fixed yield, speculate on a floating one, or hedge — the on-chain analogue of an interest-rate market. What makes Pendle a governance case study rather than just a DeFi venue is how it steered its own token incentives: for four years it ran one of the most-copied vote-escrow gauge systems (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/curve-dao) in DeFi, and in January 2026 it tore that system out (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/20/pendle-introduces-spendle-removing-the-need-for-long-lockups) — making it a live data point in the broader retreat from the ve-lock model.

vePENDLE: gauge voting, the Curve way From 2022, Pendle governance ran on vePENDLE — vote-escrowed PENDLE, the same veCRV pattern (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/curve-dao) Curve pioneered. Holders locked PENDLE for up to two years (https://docs.pendle.finance/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vePENDLE) ; voting weight scaled with both the amount locked and the time remaining, decaying as the lock ran down. That weight did one central job: direct emissions. Every epoch — snapshotted each Thursday at 00:00 UTC (https://docs.pendle.finance/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vePENDLE) — vePENDLE holders voted to channel PENDLE incentives toward specific pools, and in return earned 80% of the swap fees (https://docs.pendle.finance/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vePENDLE) from the pools they backed. An incentive cap (https://docs.pendle.finance/ProtocolMechanics/Mechanisms/vePENDLE) tied each pool's maximum incentive to its actual swap-fee performance, so votes could not endlessly farm emissions into a pool nobody traded. This is the exact token-weighted, lock-to-vote (/wiki/dao/concepts/token-weighted-voting) design that produced the " Curve wars (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/curve-dao) " and the Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/convex-finance) liquid-locker layer built to game it. Pendle inherited both its power and its problem.

January 2026: retiring the lock (vePENDLE → sPENDLE) On 20 January 2026 (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/20/pendle-introduces-spendle-removing-the-need-for-long-lockups) Pendle announced sPENDLE, a liquid staking token that replaces vePENDLE as the protocol's primary governance and reward token. The team's stated reason is a governance-participation failure: only about 20% of PENDLE supply (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/20/pendle-introduces-spendle-removing-the-need-for-long-lockups) was ever actively engaged under vePENDLE, because the multi-year lock was too complex and too illiquid for most holders. sPENDLE keeps skin in the game without the trap — a 14-day withdrawal period (https://medium.com/pendle/introducing-spendle-8479744dfdf8) (or instant redemption for a 5% fee) instead of a two-year lock, and rewards funded by up to 80% of protocol revenue used for PENDLE buybacks (https://medium.com/pendle/introducing-spendle-8479744dfdf8) . Existing lockers were not stranded: they received boosted sPENDLE up to 4× (https://medium.com/pendle/introducing-spendle-8479744dfdf8) based on remaining lock duration, decaying linearly to 1× over the life of the old lock. sPENDLE staking went live 20 January; new vePENDLE locks were paused 29 January (https://medium.com/pendle/introducing-spendle-8479744dfdf8) . The deeper change is under the hood. Manual gauge voting — the heart of the ve-model — was replaced with an algorithmic emissions model (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/01/20/pendle-introduces-spendle-removing-the-need-for-long-lockups) that routes incentives by data-driven demand signals rather than by weekly vote, cutting overall emissions by roughly 30%. Governance shifts from humans bribing votes to steer rewards toward a formula allocating rewards, with tokenholders governing the formula.

Where it sits: the post-ve turn Pendle's move is not isolated. Within months of each other, the two other most prominent ve-forks in this directory made the same call: Balancer (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/balancer-dao) voted (BIP-919/920/921) to deprecate veBAL for raw one-token-one-vote, and Pendle retired vePENDLE for a liquid staking token plus algorithmic emissions. The vote-escrow model that dominated 2022–2024 DeFi governance — Curve (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/curve-dao) , Balancer, Pendle, Convex (/wiki/dao/ecosystem/convex-finance) , and the bribe markets on top — is being unwound by the very protocols that popularized it, on the recurring finding that lock-to-vote concentrates power in a rentable few while leaving the median holder disengaged (/wiki/dao/concepts/token-weighted-voting) . Pendle's own number — 80% of supply sitting out — is a clean statement of the problem. The open question these redesigns raise is whether making governance more liquid improves participation or simply makes vote weight easier to rent by the epoch (/wiki/dao/concepts/on-chain-vs-off-chain-governance) .

How Caper approaches this Pendle spent four years engineering elaborate escrow to make governance weight expensive to acquire, then concluded the escrow itself was the problem and swapped it for a liquid, tradeable stake. Caper (/wiki/foundations/what-is-a-caper) starts from the other side: it never issues a lockable or tradeable governance token at all. In a caper a member's vote weight (/wiki/governance/voting) is (held × votes) / (vote_supply × circulation) — the amount of the caper's token held, multiplied by a soulbound, non-transferable vote record that is minted one-per-vote and can never be sent, sold, or locked to another wallet (verified in contracts/src/caper_dao.rs: the vote token is DIVISIBILITY_NONE and minted straight into the voter's account, and compute_vote_weight is that product). Because the record is earned by participating rather than bought or escrowed, there is no lock to optimize, no bribe market to build on top, and no liquid governance token to rent — the failure modes Pendle, Curve, and Convex spent years fighting simply have no surface to attach to. The same weight also settles the exit: a member's pro-rata share of the treasury on exit (/wiki/dao/concepts/rage-quit-and-exit-rights) uses the identical (held × votes) / (vote_supply × circulation) helper, so the number that governs and the number that cashes out are the same — governance and skin-in-the-game are one quantity, not two tokens to reconcile. (This is a design contrast, not a claim that Caper does yield tokenization.)