Virtuals is the protocol AI agents launch, trade and are co-owned on, and VIRTUAL is the token at its center. Locking VIRTUAL in veVIRTUAL turns it into voting weight in how the protocol is run.

A lock is VIRTUAL committed for a term of weeks, up to two years. The longer the term, the more weight each VIRTUAL carries, and an expiring lock decays in a straight line until its term ends and the VIRTUAL can be withdrawn. A lock set to renew holds its full weight indefinitely and cannot be withdrawn until renewal is switched off and the full term has run again. The weight votes only once it is delegated, to the staker or to anyone else.

The weight is steady and the timing is not. An expiring lock loses weight every block unless someone extends it. A lock that matures sits idle until someone withdraws it. Switching renewal off starts a two-year clock that nobody watches.

Every step of a lock is a step in a plug: staking, extending, switching renewal, withdrawing at maturity and delegating, with the VIRTUAL a withdraw returns flowing into the next step. A stake the wallet makes is the wallet's own; a stake made beside other steps is held by the Plug account, which works it on a schedule or a condition and can hand its votes to the wallet.

VIRTUAL bought and locked in one run. A lock withdrawn the block it matures and restaked or swapped in the same plug. A term topped up before it decays.

The stakers with the most say in Virtuals did not watch their locks more closely than anyone else. Their locks run themselves.