Hidden Hand

• Name: Hidden Hand
• URL: https://hiddenhand.finance/
• Category: governance-incentive marketplace / vote-bribing infrastructure / delegated vote-routing layer
• Tags: ethereum-ecosystem
• Summary: Hidden Hand is a managed vote router for ve-style governance markets. Buyers deposit incentives for gauges or proposals, delegators hand voting power to Hidden Hand, and the platform routes that pooled weight toward the best-paying path. The important point is not bribes exist; it is that delegation plus optimization turns governance into a managed yield product and gives the operator a real routing choke point.
• What it does:
  • Runs partner-specific markets where external protocols can add incentives to targeted gauges or proposals
  • Lets governance-token holders delegate voting power to Hidden Hand so the platform can execute a reward-maximizing voting strategy on their behalf
  • Returns bribe rewards to participating voters or delegators after each epoch, net of protocol fees
  • Supports advanced incentive configurations including range bribes and limit bribes so buyers can control reward-per-vote spending and rollover behavior across rounds
  • Charges a protocol-side fee on bribes and splits that fee between Dinero-aligned stakeholders and treasury, giving the marketplace its own rent-capture layer
• Key claims:
  • The official overview describes Hidden Hand by Dinero as a marketplace for governance incentives, commonly referred to as bribes, and frames it as a tool for third-party protocols to make governance more efficient while giving users extra rewards
  • The mechanics docs say users lock the relevant governance token, delegate it to Hidden Hand, external protocols bribe the relevant pool, and Hidden Hand auto-selects the vote distribution that yields the highest bribe value
  • The delegation docs say delegators entrust Hidden Hand to pool votes and use an algorithm to identify the voting strategy that maximizes dollar-per-vote returns, which makes the platform a genuine routing layer rather than a passive listing venue
  • The delegation docs also say users can still vote manually on specific proposals after delegating, which means Hidden Hand behaves as a default optimizer layered on top of underlying governance rather than as an exclusive controller
  • The fee docs state users pay no direct interaction fees, while Hidden Hand takes a 4% fee on all bribes; the mechanics docs say that fee is split evenly between the Dinero treasury and DINERO/sDINERO reward recipients
  • The bribe-types docs show the market is evolving toward more explicit price controls, including range bribes and fill-or-kill style limit bribes, which is a strong sign that governance influence is being productized into a more legible order book
• Whitepaper: No canonical standalone Hidden Hand whitepaper or litepaper surfaced in this pass. The clearest primary materials were the official docs pages for overview, mechanics, fee structure, delegation, and bribe types; see ../whitepapers/hidden-hand-primary-sources-2026-05-07.md.
• Sources:
  • https://hiddenhand.finance/
  • https://learn.hiddenhand.finance/
  • https://learn.hiddenhand.finance/mechanics
  • https://learn.hiddenhand.finance/delegating-to-hidden-hand
  • https://learn.hiddenhand.finance/fee-structure
  • https://learn.hiddenhand.finance/bribe-types

Internal linkages

• Keep this note on the strongest read-throughs: curve, convex-finance, and votemarket.

• Useful cut: Hidden Hand is a managed optimizer layered on top of gauge wars, not the base venue itself.

• Last reviewed: 2026-05-26 UTC