PancakeSwap implements new ‘Gauges’ voting system

The system allows governance tokenholders to vote for additional rewards to be distributed to particular pools, according to a Nov. 22 blog post.

PancakeSwap is the third-largest decentralized exchange (DEX) in terms of total value locked (TVL), according to blockchain analytics platform DefiLlama. At the time of publication, it had over $1.4 billion TVL. Its governance token, CAKE, is distributed as a reward to users who provide liquidity. It is governed by a decentralized autonomous organization, CakeDAO, which comprises all CAKE holders.

Under the new system, CAKE holders can vote on which pools will receive additional rewards every two weeks. However, to gain the ability to vote, they must lock their CAKE into a smart contract for a set period. The longer they lock their tokens up, the more voting power they receive. The announcement states that voting power is measured in a metric called “veCAKE,” which has replaced the previous “vCAKE” metric.