Ve Lock Governance

Vote-escrow lock governance detection

When this applies

Trigger on any of:

• Locking tokens for time-decayed voting power (create_lock, increase_amount, increase_unlock_time)
• Reading balanceOf/balanceOfNFT/votingPower from a ve contract during a vote or weight calc
• Gauge-weight voting, gauge controller vote_for_gauge_weights, emission direction
• Bribe / incentive markets (Votium, Hidden Hand, Velodrome BribeVotingReward)
• veNFT transfer, merge, split, withdraw, delegate
• Proposal systems that read voting power without a snapshot block

Detection patterns

Live vote weight, no snapshot (HIGH / CRITICAL)

function castVote(uint256 proposalId, bool support) external {
    uint256 weight = ve.balanceOf(msg.sender);   // ← read NOW, not at proposal start
    proposals[proposalId].votes[support] += weight;
}

Signal: voting power read at vote time enables flash-lock: borrow, lock, vote, then exit if withdraw allowed same block, or vote with freshly minted power. Snapshot at proposal-creation block (getPastVotes).

Gauge-weight manipulation (HIGH)

Last-block vote stuffing before the weekly checkpoint redirects emissions. If gauge weights are read at the instant of checkpoint_gauge with no time-weighting, a single-block max vote captures a full epoch of emissions (Curve gauge-war griefing class). Signal: emission direction determined by instantaneous weight, not a bias-weighted moving average.

veNFT merge / split double-vote (HIGH)

function merge(uint256 from, uint256 to) external { ... }   // does it clear `voted[from]`?

Signal: Velodrome-class finding — split/merge not resetting the per-NFT voted flag or per-epoch vote accounting lets one underlying balance vote twice in an epoch. Also check transferFrom mid-epoch carrying voting power to a non-voted recipient.

Lock-decay / max-lock precision (MEDIUM)

Linear-decay bias - slope * (t - t0) underflowing past expiry, or assuming MAXTIME lock when unlock_time was rounded down to the week. Off-by-one-week rounding inflates or deflates power at epoch boundaries.

Bribe-market timing (MEDIUM)

Claiming bribes for an epoch you voted in, then re-voting next epoch with the same balance, or claiming on a transferred veNFT — verify bribe accounting is keyed to (tokenId, epoch) and frozen at the vote.

Severity rubric

| Pattern | Severity | Notes | |---|---|---| | Flash-lock vote with same-block exit | Critical | Direct governance capture | | Live (un-snapshotted) vote weight | High | Borrowed-power voting | | merge/split/transfer double-vote | High | Velodrome-class veNFT bug | | Last-block gauge stuffing | High | Emission theft per epoch | | Decay/rounding precision at week boundary | Medium | Bounded mis-weighting | | Bribe claim re-use across epochs | Medium | Incentive leakage |

Remediation patterns

1. Snapshot voting power at proposal-creation block via ERC20Votes.getPastVotes / checkpoint history — never balanceOf at vote time.
2. Time-bias gauge weights (Curve's points_weight slope/bias with future-epoch bias) so a single block cannot dominate an epoch.
3. Reset per-NFT vote state on merge/split/transfer and forbid transfer of a veNFT that has voted in the current epoch (Velodrome voted lock).
4. Key bribe accounting to (tokenId, epoch) and freeze the balance used at vote time.
5. Disallow withdraw before unlock and round unlock_time consistently (floor to week) everywhere.

False-positive notes

• Snapshot-based systems (ERC20Votes, Compound getPriorVotes) that already pin to a past block are safe — don't flag live balanceOf used only for display.
• A non-transferable, non-mergeable ve lock with no early withdraw materially narrows the surface; note but don't escalate.

Related

• [[flash-loan-attacks]] — flash-borrowed capital funds the flash-lock vote
• [[signature-replay]] — delegated/gasless vote signatures need nonce + epoch binding
• [[centralization-risk]] — gauge controller / emission admin keys

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: omermaksutii
• Source: omermaksutii/RugProof
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://omermaksutii.github.io/RugProof

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.