Crypto Gloss

Hidden Hand

Hidden Hand is a decentralized bribe marketplace built by Redacted (formerly Redacted Cartel) that aggregates governance vote incentives (“bribes”) for multiple DeFi protocols — allowing protocols to pay vlAURA, veCRV, veFXS, veGRAIL, and other vote-escrow holders for their gauge votes in a transparent, protocol-neutral marketplace.

Overview

Hidden Hand launched in 2022 as part of Redacted’s product suite (alongside Pirex and BTRFLY token). It was designed to solve a fragmented bribery landscape: before Hidden Hand, each protocol had its own bribe mechanism — Votium for Convex/Curve, Bribe.crv.finance for bare Curve, individual schemes for Frax, Balancer, and others. Hidden Hand unified these into a single interface where protocols post rewards for specific gauges, and any governance token holder can claim their share after voting.

How Hidden Hand Works

The following sections cover this in detail.

Bribe Posting

  1. Protocol wants emissions for their pool (e.g., Balancer WETH/rETH pool)
  2. Protocol deposits bribe tokens (USDC, WETH, or native tokens) into Hidden Hand for a specific gauge and epoch
  3. Bribe is visible to all voters: “100,000 USDC for votes on Balancer WETH/rETH gauge this epoch”

Vote Claiming

  1. vlAURA/vleBAL/veCRV holder votes for the bribed gauge during the voting window
  2. After epoch ends, voter claims their proportional share of the bribe based on votes cast toward that gauge
  3. Claimable immediately — no complex vesting

Multi-Protocol Support

Hidden Hand supports bribes for:

  • Balancer/Aura — vlAURA gauge votes for BAL emissions
  • Frax Finance — veFXS gauge votes for FXS emissions
  • Velodrome/Aerodrome — veVELO and veAERO gauge votes
  • Camelot — veGRAIL gauge votes for GRAIL emissions
  • Tokemak — TOKE governance
  • Ribbon — various vesting governance weight bribes
  • New protocols added via governance

Redacted and BTRFLY

Hidden Hand is a product of Redacted (formerly Redacted Cartel):

  • BTRFLY — Redacted’s governance token; staked BTRFLY holders receive a share of Hidden Hand platform fees
  • Redacted also operates Pirex (liquid wrappers for locked veCRV → pxCVX, vlCVX → pxCVX) that integrates with Hidden Hand’s voting
  • Platform fee: Hidden Hand takes a small % of all bribes processed as protocol revenue

Bribe Efficiency Metrics

Key metric in the “Curve/Aura Wars” ecosystem:

  • Bribe per vote — how much USDC (or $ equivalent) a protocol pays per vote
  • ROI for voter — ratio of bribe received to emissions received in the voted pool
  • Hidden Hand provides transparent dashboards showing historical bribe-per-vote data, helping protocols price bribes efficiently

Leading bribors by historical spend:

  • Frax Finance — consistently one of the largest bribers for Curve and Balancer pools
  • Rocket Pool — bribes for WETH/rETH Balancer pool
  • Lido — bribes for stETH-related Curve/Balancer pools

Transparent vs Off-Chain Bribery

Before Hidden Hand (and Votium), bribing occurred:

  • Informally via DM and token transfers
  • Through front-running gauge votes
  • Via multisig-to-multisig deals

Hidden Hand’s key contribution: transparent, on-chain, fair-split bribery where any holder can participate equally in receiving bribes based on their vote weight — eliminating information asymmetry and informal deal-making.

Sources

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