🧩 How Curve’s veToken Model Cured the Food-Farm Death Spiral
DeFi Summer was chaos — sky-high yields, food-themed tokens, and death spirals everywhere. But one protocol endured: Curve Finance. In this deep dive, I break down how Curve’s veToken model turned mercenary farmers into long-term stakeholders, kicked off the Curve Wars, and reshaped tokenomics. If you’re into crypto incentives, governance, or building sticky protocols, this one's for you.
OlympusDAO Part 2: Less ponzi, more protocol
Deep dives into DeFi mechanics, tokenomics, incentive design, macro and trading.
🧩 How Curve’s veToken Model Cured the Food-Farm Death Spiral
DeFi Summer was chaos — sky-high yields, food-themed tokens, and death spirals everywhere. But one protocol endured: Curve Finance. In this deep dive, I break down how Curve’s veToken model turned mercenary farmers into long-term stakeholders, kicked off the Curve Wars, and reshaped tokenomics. If you’re into crypto incentives, governance, or building sticky protocols, this one's for you.
OlympusDAO Part 2: Less ponzi, more protocol
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Deep dives into DeFi mechanics, tokenomics, incentive design, macro and trading.
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Snapchat streaks were a crazy time, you'd open your phone to 5 messages which were just a black screen with the letter 's' drawn on. I think this epitomises the biggest concern I have with implementing streaks well, the fact that if you pick the wrong action to incentivise or do it in even slightly the wrong way you can stop people from using the platform in a good way. Take Duolingo. It's great for getting people back, but most people (that I know) do their streak in a panic at 11:57pm, is that condusive to learning... probably not. Essentially with the great power of streaks, comes the great responsibility of understanding your users motivations and getting the implementation right.
This article is from a past chapter of my writing, back when I was diving into game mechanics. Since then, I’ve pivoted to tokenomics and DeFi. If that’s more your thing, you might like this one instead: "How Curve’s veToken Model Cured the Food-Farm Death Spiral".
When I think of streaks, my mind wanders back to my high school days, where maintaining a Snapchat streak with my friends was one of the most important parts of my morning.
Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't Break the Chain" method and my primary school attendance rewards were also streaks. Streaks are simply rewards for completing consecutive actions, which makes them an effective mechanism for promoting consistency and habit-forming behaviour.
However, this doesn’t mean streaks are a magical feature that will save all apps and businesses from churn. Just because streaks are great at bringing learners back to Duolingo every day doesn’t mean they will be equally successful in driving engagement in Candy Crush. Below is a breakdown of the nuance behind streaks.
Most successful streak implementations focus on building habits and consistency, which then tap into loss aversion.
Duolingo rewards streaks for completing daily language lessons. As users finish each lesson, they experience a psychological reward by seeing their progress. The streak counter increases from six to seven, and a smile appears on their face. Once a learner achieves a certain streak, they become attached to it and don’t want to lose it, so they keep coming back for their daily lesson.
Apps like Headspace, Habitica, and Strava all rely on users' consistent habits and commitment to improvement. After seeing respectable progress and developing a sense of ownership and pride, users keep returning to avoid losing that progress.
For example, a friend of mine struggled with weight loss for years. He started using MyFitnessPal and built a streak by consistently logging his meals and workouts. That consistency alone was enough to spark his initial progress. Being mindful of his caloric intake and exercise routine led him to optimise his fitness regime, and his progress skyrocketed. Maintaining that streak kept him accountable, and over time, he achieved his fitness goals. Interestingly, he didn’t brag about how much weight he lost or his personal records at the gym. What he was most proud of was the length of his MyFitnessPal streak.
Just as streaks have successfully driven engagement in traditional digital media, their benefits can extend to Web3 apps. Possible scenarios where streaks might make sense in Web3 include:
Tracking and rewarding high-value interactions: In apps where maintaining a streak impacts one’s share of rewards or influence, tracking it on-chain could be beneficial.
Exclusive membership or content: Apps could reward certain streaks with an access key NFT, proving activity and dedication to a community.
DAO participation: Voting participation could be tracked as a streak, with longer streaks indicating commitment to the organisation and contributing to reputation.
Cross-platform streaks: High streaks on one platform could be rewarded in another, promoting cross-app engagement.
However, it’s important to consider potential drawbacks in Web3, such as gas fees and burnout:
Gas fees: Streaks usually require frequent interactions (e.g., daily), and the costs of these daily transactions can add up, even on Layer 2 solutions. Ensure the rewards for maintaining a streak outweigh the transaction fees users have to pay.
Burnout: Streak mechanics can put pressure on users to stay engaged, leading to burnout. While this is true of all streaks, blockchain-based streaks are especially vulnerable due to the irreversible nature of blockchain records. If users break their streak, they may settle for what they’ve achieved and drop out altogether.
While streaks are highly effective in certain contexts, they may not be suitable for every platform—particularly those that rely on long, infrequent user sessions.
For example, Candy Crush monetises through long, frustration-driven play sessions. Users often play infrequently but for extended periods, and the game profits when users purchase boosters and lives after running out of moves. In this case, streaks based on daily logins wouldn’t be as valuable. The platform profits more from intense, infrequent play rather than short, frequent check-ins.
That said, streaks don’t always have to be tied to daily logins. Performance-based streaks, like Pokémon Go’s “good throw” streaks, show how streak mechanics can adapt to different contexts. For a game like Candy Crush, streaks could reward users for completing levels without taking damage or achieving consecutive wins.
If the pressure of losing a streak isn’t enough, there are ways to raise the stakes. Duolingo’s streak wager system allows users to spend 50 gems to enter a bet: if they maintain their streak for seven days, they receive 100 gems in return.
The loss aversion aspect of streaks can also be further gamified. Users should be allowed to put their streak on hold when life gets in the way. Similarly, just because a user misses a day doesn’t mean they have to lose everything. They could be given the option to buy back their streak or earn it back by achieving a new milestone streak.
The successful implementation of streaks hinges on the context in which they are applied, how they are applied, and the audience to which they are applied.
If you’re considering adding streaks to your app, check out our game mechanics cards to see if another mechanic might better suit your needs.
Streaks foster consistency by turning daily actions into habit-forming behaviours, leveraging loss aversion to keep users engaged.
The psychological attachment to streaks, like MyFitnessPal’s logging, keeps users accountable and proud of their progress, fuelling ongoing engagement.
Web3 apps can use streaks to track high-value interactions, reward commitment, and even cross-pollinate engagement across platforms.
Streaks aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution—apps like Candy Crush might benefit more from performance-based streaks rather than daily check-ins.
Context is key—streaks need to be nuanced, gamified, and flexible to avoid burnout and fit the platform’s engagement model.
This article is from a past chapter of my writing, back when I was diving into game mechanics. Since then, I’ve pivoted to tokenomics and DeFi. If that’s more your thing, you might like this one instead: "How Curve’s veToken Model Cured the Food-Farm Death Spiral".
When I think of streaks, my mind wanders back to my high school days, where maintaining a Snapchat streak with my friends was one of the most important parts of my morning.
Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't Break the Chain" method and my primary school attendance rewards were also streaks. Streaks are simply rewards for completing consecutive actions, which makes them an effective mechanism for promoting consistency and habit-forming behaviour.
However, this doesn’t mean streaks are a magical feature that will save all apps and businesses from churn. Just because streaks are great at bringing learners back to Duolingo every day doesn’t mean they will be equally successful in driving engagement in Candy Crush. Below is a breakdown of the nuance behind streaks.
Most successful streak implementations focus on building habits and consistency, which then tap into loss aversion.
Duolingo rewards streaks for completing daily language lessons. As users finish each lesson, they experience a psychological reward by seeing their progress. The streak counter increases from six to seven, and a smile appears on their face. Once a learner achieves a certain streak, they become attached to it and don’t want to lose it, so they keep coming back for their daily lesson.
Apps like Headspace, Habitica, and Strava all rely on users' consistent habits and commitment to improvement. After seeing respectable progress and developing a sense of ownership and pride, users keep returning to avoid losing that progress.
For example, a friend of mine struggled with weight loss for years. He started using MyFitnessPal and built a streak by consistently logging his meals and workouts. That consistency alone was enough to spark his initial progress. Being mindful of his caloric intake and exercise routine led him to optimise his fitness regime, and his progress skyrocketed. Maintaining that streak kept him accountable, and over time, he achieved his fitness goals. Interestingly, he didn’t brag about how much weight he lost or his personal records at the gym. What he was most proud of was the length of his MyFitnessPal streak.
Just as streaks have successfully driven engagement in traditional digital media, their benefits can extend to Web3 apps. Possible scenarios where streaks might make sense in Web3 include:
Tracking and rewarding high-value interactions: In apps where maintaining a streak impacts one’s share of rewards or influence, tracking it on-chain could be beneficial.
Exclusive membership or content: Apps could reward certain streaks with an access key NFT, proving activity and dedication to a community.
DAO participation: Voting participation could be tracked as a streak, with longer streaks indicating commitment to the organisation and contributing to reputation.
Cross-platform streaks: High streaks on one platform could be rewarded in another, promoting cross-app engagement.
However, it’s important to consider potential drawbacks in Web3, such as gas fees and burnout:
Gas fees: Streaks usually require frequent interactions (e.g., daily), and the costs of these daily transactions can add up, even on Layer 2 solutions. Ensure the rewards for maintaining a streak outweigh the transaction fees users have to pay.
Burnout: Streak mechanics can put pressure on users to stay engaged, leading to burnout. While this is true of all streaks, blockchain-based streaks are especially vulnerable due to the irreversible nature of blockchain records. If users break their streak, they may settle for what they’ve achieved and drop out altogether.
While streaks are highly effective in certain contexts, they may not be suitable for every platform—particularly those that rely on long, infrequent user sessions.
For example, Candy Crush monetises through long, frustration-driven play sessions. Users often play infrequently but for extended periods, and the game profits when users purchase boosters and lives after running out of moves. In this case, streaks based on daily logins wouldn’t be as valuable. The platform profits more from intense, infrequent play rather than short, frequent check-ins.
That said, streaks don’t always have to be tied to daily logins. Performance-based streaks, like Pokémon Go’s “good throw” streaks, show how streak mechanics can adapt to different contexts. For a game like Candy Crush, streaks could reward users for completing levels without taking damage or achieving consecutive wins.
If the pressure of losing a streak isn’t enough, there are ways to raise the stakes. Duolingo’s streak wager system allows users to spend 50 gems to enter a bet: if they maintain their streak for seven days, they receive 100 gems in return.
The loss aversion aspect of streaks can also be further gamified. Users should be allowed to put their streak on hold when life gets in the way. Similarly, just because a user misses a day doesn’t mean they have to lose everything. They could be given the option to buy back their streak or earn it back by achieving a new milestone streak.
The successful implementation of streaks hinges on the context in which they are applied, how they are applied, and the audience to which they are applied.
If you’re considering adding streaks to your app, check out our game mechanics cards to see if another mechanic might better suit your needs.
Streaks foster consistency by turning daily actions into habit-forming behaviours, leveraging loss aversion to keep users engaged.
The psychological attachment to streaks, like MyFitnessPal’s logging, keeps users accountable and proud of their progress, fuelling ongoing engagement.
Web3 apps can use streaks to track high-value interactions, reward commitment, and even cross-pollinate engagement across platforms.
Streaks aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution—apps like Candy Crush might benefit more from performance-based streaks rather than daily check-ins.
Context is key—streaks need to be nuanced, gamified, and flexible to avoid burnout and fit the platform’s engagement model.
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Snapchat streaks were a crazy time, you'd open your phone to 5 messages which were just a black screen with the letter 's' drawn on. I think this epitomises the biggest concern I have with implementing streaks well, the fact that if you pick the wrong action to incentivise or do it in even slightly the wrong way you can stop people from using the platform in a good way. Take Duolingo. It's great for getting people back, but most people (that I know) do their streak in a panic at 11:57pm, is that condusive to learning... probably not. Essentially with the great power of streaks, comes the great responsibility of understanding your users motivations and getting the implementation right.