Gauge Onboarding

A gauge is a staking contract that enables token rewards to flow to liquidity providers of a pool. Pools do not automatically have gauges — they must be created first.

BAL emissions halted

Per BIP-919 (BAL Tokenomics Revamp)open in new window, BAL emissions to gauges are halted and all voting-incentive markets have been terminated. This page covers gauge creation for third-party (non-BAL) reward routing only — for example, LST/LRT yield streams or partner reward tokens.

Gauge infrastructure is maintained on a best-effort basis; the core team may migrate routing to alternative systems (e.g. MERKL) in the future. There is no longer a Snapshot vote, gauge controller weight, or veBAL gauge category for new gauges.

When You Need a Gauge

You need a gauge if you want to stream your own reward tokens to LPs through Balancer's on-chain reward infrastructure (via the claimable_rewards flow). If you don't intend to distribute secondary rewards, you do not need a gauge — pool fees flow to LPs directly through the Vault.

Prerequisites

Before creating a gauge:

  1. Your pool is deployed and indexed (visible on the Balancer Appopen in new window)
  2. Rate providers are vetted (if applicable) — see Rate Provider Registryopen in new window
  3. Your reward token is whitelisted in the Balancer tokenlistopen in new window

Create the Gauge

Use the Gauge Creator Toolopen in new window to deploy your gauge contracts.

Ethereum Mainnet Pools

  1. Select "Ethereum" on the gauge creator
  2. Search and select your pool from the pool list Select Pool
  3. If a gauge has already been created for your pool, the UI will display a warning — you can skip this step Gauge Already Exists
  4. Execute the transaction by clicking "Create Mainnet Gauge"
  5. Note down the gauge address — it will appear in the event logs and in the UI after a successful transaction Creation Event

For mainnet, only the root gauge is needed.

L2 / Sidechain Pools

For pools on Arbitrum, Polygon, Gnosis, Base, Optimism, Avalanche, and other supported L2 networks:

  1. Create the Child Chain Gauge first:

    • Select the target network on the gauge creator
    • Search and select your pool from the pool list
    • The tool will indicate if a child-chain gauge already exists for this pool
    • Execute the child-chain gauge creation transaction

  2. (Optional) Create the Root Gauge on Ethereum:

    • Historically a root gauge was required to route BAL emissions across chains. With emissions halted, a root gauge is no longer necessary for secondary-reward use cases — LPs interact directly with the child-chain gauge.

Next Steps

Once your gauge is deployed, follow the Incentive Management Guide to:

  • Whitelist your reward token on the gauge
  • Configure a rewards injector for automated distribution
  • Fund the program

Security Notes

  • Balancer's Emergency subDAO may disable pools or gauges in case of malicious activity.
  • The stale-gauge removal framework defined by BIP-795open in new window is no longer operationally meaningful post-BIP-919open in new window: with BAL emissions halted there is nothing to reclaim by killing a gauge, so routine gauge kills are no longer performed. The framework is retained for historical reference, and the Emergency subDAO can still kill a gauge if needed for protocol-safety reasons.

Resources