Whitepaper chapter notes (archive)07 / 10
veAiLGNS Governance
These notes follow the whitepaper chapter by chapter; they are archived and no longer updated as the chain changes. The protocol in brief, and where the chain differs from the whitepaper, is in the HELIX quick reference; the official docs have the current rules.
In 30 seconds
- Whitepaper plan: lock or burn AiLGNS to get veAiLGNS voting power
- A lock's principal comes back; a burn buys permanent votes, no redemption
- More votes don't mean more emission; protocol caps still apply
What governance controls
HELIX has two spirals. HELIX-P sets the boundaries for emission, liquidity and risk; HELIX-M lets the market decide where resources go inside those boundaries. veAiLGNS is how you take part in HELIX-M. Whitepaper p. 94
AiLGNS → veAiLGNS → Vote → Gauge → Five Pools
Epochs in real time
Governance counts in epochs; 1 epoch = 7 days. Whitepaper p. 94
| Epochs | Roughly |
|---|---|
| 5 | 35 days |
| 26 | half a year |
| 52 | 1 year |
| 104 | 2 years |
| 208 | 4 years |
Source: Whitepaper p. 94
Two ways in (Dual-ve)
The principle: ordinary participants trade time for governance power; permanent governors trade a burn for permanent governance. Both paths end in veAiLGNS and vote in the same system. Whitepaper p. 95
Way one: time lock
Lock AiLGNS in the ve contract and you receive an ordinary veAiLGNS NFT. The whitepaper's shortest lock is 5 epochs and its longest 208; since 2026-09-28 the contract's shortest lock is 26 epochs. Whitepaper p. 95
Voting Power = Locked AiLGNS × Remaining Epoch ÷ 208
| Lock length | Starting voting weight |
|---|---|
| 5 epochs | about 2.40% |
| 26 epochs | 12.5% |
| 52 epochs | 25% |
| 104 epochs | 50% |
| 208 epochs | 100% |
Source: Whitepaper p. 95. With a full 208-epoch lock, 1 AiLGNS = 1 veAiLGNS.
Voting power falls linearly with the epochs remaining and reaches zero at expiry, when 100% of the locked AiLGNS is returned. Locking 100,000 AiLGNS for 208 epochs, for example, starts at 100,000 veAiLGNS, then falls through 75%, 50% and 25% to zero. Whitepaper p. 96 The cost is time and liquidity; the principal is never lost. Whitepaper p. 96 The official HELIX dApp says the principal is released linearly over the lock term; see the comparison below.
Way two: burn for permanent governance
Burn 100% of your AiLGNS and receive Permanent veAiLGNS at 1:1. The principal is gone for good and cannot be redeemed. Whitepaper p. 96
1 AiLGNS Burn = 1 Permanent veAiLGNS
- This path is bounded by the 189,000,000 AiLGNS maximum cumulative burn. Once the remaining burn capacity is used up, no new Permanent veAiLGNS can be created. Whitepaper p. 96
- An ordinary veNFT can be converted one way into a permanent veNFT during its lock (the locked AiLGNS is burned in full). There is no way back. Whitepaper p. 98
- A permanent veNFT can be transferred; the new holder inherits its current voting and economic rights. V1 has no official veNFT trading pool. Whitepaper p. 99
Both kinds count the same
Locking and burning both mint a veAiLGNS ERC-721 NFT, and one wallet can hold both kinds. Whitepaper p. 97 Permanent governance gets no bonus multiplier: Whitepaper p. 97
1 Effective veAiLGNS = 1 Vote = 1× Economic Weight
Holding veAiLGNS lets you: Whitepaper p. 98
- vote on the Gauges of the five official pools;
- receive a share of trading fees and voting rewards from the pools you vote for;
- share in 1% of the AiLGNS sell fee.
Three limits on permanent governance
"Permanent" means the right to govern never expires, not that full weight lasts forever. Whitepaper p. 99
Full weight for 208 epochs, then minus 1 point per epoch, down to 35%
Permanent veAiLGNS keeps 100% weight for the first 208 epochs after creation. After that its weight drops by 1 percentage point each epoch and stops for good at 35%. Whitepaper p. 99 Whitepaper p. 100
W = max[35%, 100% − (t − 208) × 1%] (t > 208)At most 30% of the whole system
Permanent governance may carry at most 30% of all effective voting power. Above that, the protocol scales permanent ve weight down pro rata for the period, and the excess does not count as votes. Whitepaper p. 100
Permanent Effective Governance ≤ 30%At most 2% new per epoch
New permanent governance created in one epoch may not exceed 2% of the system's effective voting power at the snapshot, nor the remaining capacity. Direct burns and ordinary-to-permanent conversions both count toward this limit. Whitepaper p. 100
New Permanent Governance ≤ min(2% × Snapshot Effective Governance, Remaining Permanent Governance Capacity)
Lock or burn: the differences
Both paths give ve that votes and earns the same way; they differ in the principal, the term and how they change over time. The table puts the rules from the sections above side by side; where the contract or the official HELIX dApp is known to differ, the notes below it say so (checked 2026-10-06):
| Lock | Burn | |
|---|---|---|
| Principal | Comes back | Gone for good |
| Term | 26 to 208 epochs | None |
| Conversion | Amount × epochs remaining ÷ 208 | 1 for 1 |
| Over time | Falls linearly to zero at expiry | Full for 208 epochs, then down epoch by epoch to 35% |
| P levels | Scaled by epochs remaining, less every epoch | Counted in full |
| Caps | None | On its share, on new burns per epoch and on the total burned |
| Switching | Can turn permanent, one way | Cannot go back |
| LFEO eligibility | Only 208-epoch locks | Yes |
| Votes and rewards | 1 effective ve is 1 vote | The same, no extra multiplier |
Source: Whitepaper p. 95–100, Whitepaper p. 119. Some rows need a note:
- Principal: the whitepaper returns it in full at expiry; the official HELIX dApp says it is released linearly over the lock term, and the contract has a function to claim a position's unlocked principal.
- Term: the whitepaper's shortest lock is 5 epochs; since 2026-09-28 the contract's is 26 epochs, which starts at 1/8 of the amount locked.
- P levels: a lock counts locked AiLGNS × epochs remaining ÷ 208 × that day's settlement price; a burn counts burned AiLGNS × that day's settlement price. This is this site's reading of the official daily evaluation, checked every day; see the P level section of a team report.
- Switching: the official HELIX dApp says this is not open yet, and once open it burns only the principal not yet released.
- Over time: one line of the official HELIX dApp calls permanent ve "never decaying"; its detailed rules and the whitepaper both have it falling to 35% after 208 epochs.
Burning LGNS or AiLGNS to mint a production NFT is a different thing: it buys quota for claiming community dynamic rewards, creates no ve and does not count toward P levels. See HELIX in one picture · Team leader.
The weekly voting cycle
Gauges run on epochs, one vote per week, always in Singapore time (SGT, UTC+8): Whitepaper p. 106
Monday 00:00: voting opens
A new epoch starts. veAiLGNS holders vote on whitelisted pools and can change their votes until the deadline. Whitepaper p. 106
Sunday 20:00: voting closes, snapshot taken
No new or changed votes; the final valid vote count is locked. Whitepaper p. 106
Sunday 20:00 to 24:00: settlement
Pool weights, eligibility, risk and emission caps are calculated. Pool i's base weight is its share of all valid votes. Whitepaper p. 106
Gᵢ = Vᵢ / VTotalNext Monday 00:00: new weights apply
The new Gauge weights take effect in the next epoch. Whitepaper p. 106
Votes are not emission
A vote expresses what you want. Actual emission is the smaller of that and the protocol's cap: Whitepaper p. 107
EᵢActual = min(EᵢVote, EᵢMax)
The cap reflects effective liquidity, real trading volume, fee contribution and risk. Whitepaper p. 107 Every Gauge also has a single-pool emission cap whose exact percentage is a governance parameter, not fixed in the whitepaper. Whitepaper p. 108
Before execution, a pool also has to pass the HealthScore gate: Whitepaper p. 108
HealthScore = 0.30L + 0.20V + 0.20F + 0.20P + 0.10S
L is real liquidity, V real trading, F fee efficiency, P price stability and S capital stability, each mapped to a 0 to 100 scale first. Votes and voting incentives do not count. Whitepaper p. 108
| HealthScore H | Maximum share of emission executed |
|---|---|
| 80 ≤ H ≤ 100 | 100% |
| 60 ≤ H < 80 | 80% |
| 40 ≤ H < 60 | 50% |
| H < 40 | 0%, new emission paused |
Source: Whitepaper p. 109. Budget cut by the HealthScore is not handed to other pools; it goes to the Insurance Reserve. Whitepaper p. 109
Buy Votes ≠ Buy Health
Voting incentives
Voting incentives (often called bribes) come in two kinds: Whitepaper p. 110
- Protocol incentives: 1% of the Turbine activation fee base plus 1% of the AiLGNS sell fee base.
- External incentives: rewards that ecosystem projects or partners add to a particular Gauge.
Voters on a Gauge share its incentives in proportion to their votes: Whitepaper p. 109
Rewardᵤ,ᵢ = Incentiveᵢ × Voteᵤ,ᵢ / TotalVoteᵢ
Incentives can buy attention, but not emission beyond the protocol's limits. Whitepaper p. 110
Governance has limits too
The whitepaper splits governance into three tiers, and a lower tier cannot override a higher one: Whitepaper p. 162
| Tier | Scope |
|---|---|
| L1 Constitution | Supply caps, ownership, basic economic principles |
| L2 DAO governance | Emission, Gauge, Router and risk parameters |
| L3 Execution | Routing, settlement, asset deployment, emergency response |
Source: Whitepaper p. 162
- The constitution fixes, among others: maximum supply 210,000,000, maximum cumulative burn 189,000,000, final minimum supply 21,000,000, irreversible POL contributions, and an LFEO share of at most 30%. Whitepaper p. 163
- High-risk parameter changes must go through a timelock, with 48 hours suggested as the baseline. Whitepaper p. 164
- Holding voting power does not give direct control over the treasury, POL or router assets. Whitepaper p. 164
- Emergency powers can only reduce risk; they cannot mint, raise emission or move user assets. Whitepaper p. 165
Governance health
The whitepaper recommends that front ends publish cumulative emission, the amount in ordinary locks, cumulative permanent burn, effective veAiLGNS, the permanent share, average remaining lock length, the number of active veNFTs and Gauge vote concentration. Whitepaper p. 101 Of these, this site reads emission progress, each epoch's Gauge votes and the number of addresses that opened a ve position (on HELIX on-chain status); the rest have no on-chain reading yet.