# Introduction

**What is Elexium?**

Elexium is a different style of AMM (auto market maker) or DEX (decentralized exchange) that aims to be Alephium's top liquidity arena. As a VE (vote escrow DEX), we use a locked-token governance model to make us the real *People's Choice.*

### How does it work? What on earth is a VE DEX?

The swap works like a normal DEX, however we have implemented this differently to other styles on Alephium. Elexium has stable pools, which use a different formula to allow swaps at smaller slippage (more on this later) and a modified v2 x\*y=k model like traditional Dexes, for most normal pairs. (more on this later).

### Swap Routes (!!!)

***We have also implemented an Alephium first, a Router, tested up to 8 "hops". This means that unlike other Dexes on Alph, we do not need incentivised pools or liquidity added for every pair, just to make a swap possible. For example, if Elexium-Alph Pool exists, Alph-USDT pool exists, USDT-USDC pool exists, USDC-BTC exists,we could swap Elexium to BTC in one move. No Elexium-BTC liquidity would be needed, and any "hop" along the route is swappable between each other. Previously thought impossible in previous implementations, this is a game changer for Alephium DEXes and will become the standard as it is on other chains.***

### More about Elexium

Let's get back to how the Dex works- it runs on a time period called an Epoch, in our case this is 7 days. Every epoch, Liquidity Providers receive emissions like a normal Dex. The difference with a VE DEX is that users can lock (single stake) their tokens, and vote for which of these pools receive emissions. In a normal DEX environment the team would decide this only. In the VE method, the *People Decide.*

A locked Elexium token is represented by VE-ELEXIUM, an NFT that means vote escrowed Elexium, representing how much of , and how long your tokens are staked, gaining you *Vote Power.*

**veElexium Voters** receive 50% of the trading fees from the pairs they vote on, proportionally to what is locked and how many vote on that pair.


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