Paladin

Other · Governance · PAL

NetworkOtherGovernanceBribe-Marketplace2 coinsVerified

Paladin runs Paladin Vote — a bribe marketplace for liquidity gauge incentives — and liquid locker products that wrap vote-escrow positions while retaining voting rights. PAL governs the protocol.

Vote-marketplace and liquid lockers for governance tokens.

Protocol TVL

$28.2K

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Research

Components, facts, FAQ, timeline, and tokenomics in one place

Main components (6)

Quest (v2)

Paladin's flagship gauge-vote incentive marketplace. Incentive providers create a 'Quest' targeting a specific gauge, set a target amount of votes and a reward budget in whitelisted tokens over a fixed duration, which fixes the cost-per-vote in advance. Rewards are distributed to voters who fill the target (sorted oldest-to-newest vote); unfilled budget is refundable. Supports Curve (veCRV), Balancer, Bunni, and f(x) Protocol gauges.

Warlord (WAR / stkWAR)

A yield-bearing governance index over the Convex (CVX) and Aura (AURA) ecosystems. Users mint the WAR token by depositing CVX and/or AURA; the underlying is vote-locked and delegated by Paladin to optimize vote incentives. Staking WAR (stkWAR) earns rewards distributed in WETH, with BAL/CRV harvested as auraBAL/cvxCRV and any AURA/CVX auto-compounded into more WAR. Launched June 2023.

hPAL (Holy PAL) liquid staking / locker

The governance token of Paladin DAO, minted 1:1 by staking PAL. hPAL accrues PAL rewards and can be locked for 3 months to 2 years for boosted rewards (up to a x6 multiplier at 2-year lock) and enhanced voting power (locks over 1 year grant +50% voting power). Staking withdrawal requires a 10-day cooldown plus a 2-day unstaking window.

Paladin Lending (PalPools)

The original non-custodial governance lending market. Lenders deposit a governance token into a PalPool and receive a yield-bearing PalToken (ERC20); borrowers rent voting power via a PalLoan clone contract that delegates governance power to them without transferring the underlying tokens. PalLoan ownership is represented by a transferable PalLoanToken (ERC721). Initial assets targeted UNI, COMP and AAVE.

Autovoter / Delegation

A delegation service where holders of vote-locked tokens (vlCVX, vlAURA, vlLIQ) delegate voting power to Paladin, which optimizes vote allocation across incentive platforms to maximize yield while reducing gas cost and dilution.

Dullahan

A vault product generating passive income for stkAAVE holders and offering reduced interest rates for GHO borrowers on Aave. Audited by Pessimistic in April 2023.

Differentiator

Combines bribe marketplaces with liquid locker infrastructure so depositors keep voting power on locked governance positions.

Organizational structure

Units & roles

Romain Figuereo
Founder of Paladin, based in Paris, France. Led the protocol's development of a vote lending market and its $2.55M seed round in 2021.
Founder
Paladin DAO
The DAO that governs the Paladin protocol, controlled by hPAL (Holy PAL) holders who vote on key decisions via the governance forum (gov.paladin.vote). Locked hPAL over 1 year receives +50% voting power.
Governance body

Investment rounds

Date	Round	Amount	Investors	Link
2021-09-30	Seed	$2.55M	Greenfield One (lead)Galaxy DigitalNFXSemantic~20 angel investors	Source

Similarity to traditional finance products

How Paladin maps onto established TradFi structures, and where it diverges.

TradFi product	Similarity to Paladin	Key differences
Proxy-vote solicitation / proxy advisory market	Like a proxy solicitation firm that gathers shareholder votes behind a resolution, Paladin's Quest lets a project pay to align governance voters (veCRV/gauge voters) behind a specific outcome, and its delegation/Autovoter aggregates voting power much like a proxy advisor concentrates votes.	Everything is on-chain, permissionless and priced by a transparent per-vote formula rather than negotiated advisory fees; votes are rented or incentivized directly via smart contracts rather than solicited through registered intermediaries, and there is no regulatory proxy-statement regime.
Securities lending	Paladin Lending mirrors securities lending: a holder lends out an asset's embedded rights (here, voting power) to a borrower for a fee/yield while the position stays economically theirs, comparable to lending shares so a borrower can vote or short.	Only the voting/governance right is transferred via delegation (the underlying tokens never leave the pool), it is non-custodial and collateral-managed by smart contracts, and there is no central agent-lender or recall mechanism.