Balancer DAO
by Balancer Labs
Ethereum
Polygon zkEVM
Base
Arbitrum One
Avalanche
Gnosis
Optimism
Quick Fact
Balancer launched as a fork of an earlier liquidity protocol in 2020 and rapidly evolved into one of the most modular DeFi platforms. With innovations like concentrated liquidity pools (Trident) and the Route Processor, it empowers users and developers to design bespoke AMM primitives. Its grants program funds ecosystem growth through structured SubDAOs focused on marketing, grants, frontend, and smart contract development, pushing Balancer toward maximal decentralization with minimal reliance on Balancer Labs.
Balancer DAO is the decentralized governance body responsible for overseeing the Balancer protocol—a next-generation automated market maker (AMM) designed to offer flexible liquidity provisioning, composable DeFi infrastructure, and dynamic fee structures. The DAO governs upgrades, treasury allocation, and long-term strategic direction through community-driven proposals and on-chain voting.
Governance and Structure
The protocol is governed by veBAL holders — users who lock BAL and BPT (Balancer Pool Tokens) to gain voting power. Governance decisions are executed through community proposals, while operational work is distributed across subDAOs and contributor groups funded via the DAO’s treasury. These include verticals for smart contracts, frontend development, grants, and ecosystem growth.
Protocol Features
Flexible Liquidity Pools
Balancer enables users to create and trade in customizable liquidity pools with up to eight tokens per pool and variable weight configurations. This supports a wide range of use cases—from index-style portfolios to stable pools and dynamic fee mechanisms.
Composable DeFi Infrastructure
As a permissionless protocol, Balancer is designed to serve as a backend for DeFi applications, aggregators, and asset managers. It powers strategies like yield farming, protocol-owned liquidity, and structured products.
Route Optimization
Balancer’s Route Processor aggregates liquidity across supported chains and pools to enable optimal pricing and minimal slippage — supporting both native and cross-chain trades.
Economic Model
BAL and veBAL
The native token BAL is used for governance and ecosystem incentives. By locking BAL and liquidity pool tokens, users mint veBAL, which grants governance rights and boosts liquidity mining rewards.
Grants and Incentives
Balancer DAO manages a structured grants program to fund integrations, tooling, educational initiatives, and strategic deployments. Liquidity incentives are governed dynamically through community voting and gauge weight adjustments.
Strategic Vision
Balancer aims to become the most capital-efficient and customizable liquidity infrastructure in DeFi. Through its decentralized governance model, the protocol continues to evolve toward greater modularity, protocol composability, and cross-chain expansion.