Fees & Voting Incentives

VIRTUS Protocol charges zero protocol fee. All economic value generated by trading activity flows entirely to protocol participants — liquidity providers and veVRT voters. The founding team receives distributions through the same mechanism as any other participant: locking VRT, voting on gauges, and receiving fee distributions and voting incentives from voted pools.

Trading Fees

Every swap executed through a VIRTUS liquidity pool generates a trading fee paid by the trader. The fee is charged as a percentage of the input token amount and remains inside the pool until claimed.

Fee Tiers by Pool Type

Pool Type	Fee Tier	Intended Use
Stable (sAMM)	0.01%	Pegged pairs — stablecoins, LSTs against base asset
Volatile (vAMM)	0.20% or 0.30%	Uncorrelated token pairs
CL — Tier 1	0.01%	Near-pegged assets
CL — Tier 2	0.05%	High-liquidity pairs (WETH/USDC, major stables)
CL — Tier 3	0.30%	Standard volatile pairs
CL — Tier 4	1.00%	Low-liquidity or exotic pairs

Pool fee tiers are set at pool creation. CL pools allow choosing among four tiers; stable and volatile pools have a fixed fee per type.

Protocol fee: 0%. VIRTUS Protocol does not extract a cut from trading fees. The fee switch is not controlled by any multisig or team address. All fees go to participants.

Fee Distribution

Where trading fees go depends entirely on whether the LP position generating them is staked in a gauge:

Trading fee generated by a swap
          │
          ├── Pool has NO gauge (or gauge exists but no votes)
          │         │
          │         └── 100% → LP holders (proportional to pool share)
          │
          ├── Pool has gauge, LP NOT staked
          │         │
          │         ├── 90% → LP holder (proportional to pool share)
          │         └── 10% → veVRT voters who voted for that gauge
          │
          └── Pool has gauge, LP IS staked
                    │
                    └── 100% → veVRT voters who voted for that gauge
                               (proportional to their share of gauge vote weight)

Unstaked LP — Direct Fee Distributions

Pool has gauge with active votes?	LP may receive	Voters may receive
No	100% of fees	—
Yes	90% of fees	10% of fees

An LP who has not staked may receive all trading fee distributions if the pool has no active gauge voting. If there is an active gauge with votes, 10% of fees are redirected to veVRT voters — this is not a protocol fee, it is a governance incentive for directing emissions to that pool.

Fees accrue continuously with each swap
Claimable at any time — no epoch required
Amount proportional to share of total pool liquidity

Staked LP — Fees Redirected to Voters

When an LP stakes in a gauge, their position's trading fees are redirected away from them and toward veVRT voters:

The LP may receive VRT emission distributions instead (distributed weekly at epoch end)
Eligible voters may receive up to 100% of fee distributions from that gauge's staked pools
The choice to stake is voluntary — the LP decides whether emission distributions or fee distributions are more favorable

veVRT Voter Fee Distributions

Eligible veVRT voters may receive trading fee distributions as a governance participation incentive. The mechanism creates a direct link between governance decisions and protocol outcomes: participants may receive distributions from the pools they choose to support.

How Voter Fee Distributions Work

A veVRT holder votes for one or more gauges during an epoch
Trading fees accumulate in those pools throughout the week (from staked LP positions)
At epoch close (Wednesday 23:59 UTC), fees are snapshotted
After epoch transition (Thursday 00:00 UTC), fees become claimable
The voter claims their share from each voted gauge

Voter Fee Calculation

A voter's share of fees from a given gauge depends on how much of the pool's LP is staked:

Voter Fee Share = (Voter's vote weight in gauge / Total vote weight in gauge)
                  × Fees available to voters

Where fees available to voters = 10% of unstaked LP fees + 100% of staked LP fees.

Example:

Pool X generates 50,000 USDC in fees — all from staked LP positions (100% goes to voters)
Total vote weight directed at Pool X: 10,000,000 veVRT
Voter A contributed: 1,000,000 veVRT (10% of gauge weight)
Voter A may receive: 5,000 USDC

This applies regardless of how many VRT the voter holds — only vote weight in that specific gauge matters.

Fee Tokens

Voters receive fees in the same tokens generated by the pool — not in VRT. A voter who voted for the WETH/USDC pool receives fees in WETH and USDC.

Claiming Fees

Fees are claimable from the Governance section of the VIRTUS app after each epoch closes. Multiple epochs of unclaimed fees can be claimed in a single transaction.

External Bribes (Voting Incentives)

Any wallet can deposit tokens into a gauge's bribe contract to incentivize veVRT voters to allocate voting power to that gauge. This mechanism is called voting incentives or bribes.

Why Bribes Exist

Projects and protocols that want VRT emissions directed to their liquidity pool use bribes to attract voter attention:

More vote weight → more VRT emission for that gauge
More VRT emission → stronger incentive for LPs to stake in that gauge
More staked LPs → deeper liquidity for the project's token pair

Bribes create a marketplace for VRT emissions. Projects compete for voter attention by depositing incentive tokens.

How Bribes Work

External project deposits bribe tokens into gauge bribe contract
                    │
                    └── veVRT voters who vote for that gauge
                        receive bribe tokens at epoch end
                        (proportional to their gauge vote weight)

Property	Detail
Who can deposit bribes	Any wallet — projects, individuals, protocols
Bribe token type	Any ERC-20 token
When deposited	Any time during the epoch before voting closes
When claimable	After the epoch in which the vote occurred
Guaranteed?	No — bribes are entirely optional and set by external parties
VIRTUS involvement	None — bribes are deposited by third parties, not the protocol

Bribe Distribution

Bribe tokens are distributed pro-rata among all voters who directed weight to the bribed gauge during that epoch:

Voter Bribe Share = (Voter's vote weight in gauge / Total vote weight in gauge) × Total bribe amount

This is the same formula as trading fee distribution — vote weight determines share of both fee distributions and voting incentives from a gauge.

Distribution Strategy for Voters

Participants may evaluate gauges based on combined protocol distributions from:

Trading fees — variable, depend on pool volume
Voting incentives — variable, deposited by third parties before or during each epoch

Participants may consider available distributions (fee distributions + voting incentives) per unit of vote weight allocated. All amounts are variable and not guaranteed.

Full Rewards Summary by Participant

Participant	Trading Fees	VRT Emissions	Voting Incentives	Rebases
LP — unstaked	100% from own pool	-	-	-
LP — staked in gauge	Redirected to voters	Weekly	-	-
veVRT voter	10% (unstaked pools) + 100% (staked pools)	-	From voted gauges (if deposited)	If ratio condition met
veVRT locker (non-voter)	-	-	-	If ratio condition met

Protocol Revenue

VIRTUS Protocol generates no revenue from the fee switch — the protocol fee is permanently 0%.

The founding team receives distributions through the same mechanism as any protocol participant:

Revenue Source	Mechanism
Trading fees	Team's veVRT positions vote on gauges; may receive up to 100% of fee distributions from voted pools
External bribes	Received from voted gauges alongside any other voter
VRT emissions (team rate)	Up to 5% of weekly base emission, minted as an additional allocation via `setTeamRate` in the Minter contract

Team emission allocation is capped at 5% and cannot be increased after deployment. It is used exclusively for protocol development, infrastructure, and operating costs.

No revenue is passively distributed to VRT holders. Economic participation requires active governance involvement (voting) or active liquidity provision.

Epoch Timing for Claims

Event	Timing
Voting window opens	Thursday 00:00 UTC
Fee accumulation period	Thursday 00:00 → Wednesday 23:59 UTC
Epoch snapshot	Wednesday 23:59 UTC
Epoch transition / new emission	Thursday 00:00 UTC
Fees and bribes claimable	Immediately after epoch transition
VRT emissions claimable	Immediately after epoch transition

Claims from prior epochs remain available indefinitely — there is no expiry for unclaimed fees, bribes, or emissions.

Legal

Fee distributions and voting incentives are variable and not guaranteed. Distribution amounts depend on trading volume, pool depth, vote weight, and third-party incentive deposits — all of which are outside the protocol's control and may be zero. Past distributions do not predict future distributions. This documentation is for informational purposes only. See Legal Disclaimer for the full risk disclosure.

Last updated: May 2026 — Version 1.1

Trading Fees​

Fee Tiers by Pool Type​

Fee Distribution​

Unstaked LP — Direct Fee Distributions​

Staked LP — Fees Redirected to Voters​

veVRT Voter Fee Distributions​

How Voter Fee Distributions Work​

Voter Fee Calculation​

Fee Tokens​

Claiming Fees​

External Bribes (Voting Incentives)​

Why Bribes Exist​

How Bribes Work​

Bribe Distribution​

Distribution Strategy for Voters​

Full Rewards Summary by Participant​

Protocol Revenue​

Epoch Timing for Claims​

Legal​