# Governance Staking
### Voting power
veASH refers to escrowed ASH, a holding mechanism enabling users to secure their ASH for varying durations in order to enhance their voting influence. Users have the flexibility to lock their ASH for as short as a week and as long as four years. As users extend the duration of their voting escrow, their stake increases, leading to a greater allocation of voting power.
### Voting Cycle (epoch)
An epoch will last for one week, starting from 00:00 on Thursday until 23:59 on the following Wednesday
### Governance Stake ratio
By locking ASH, you can earn 50% of the trading fees across all pools at AshSwap & 50% of Platform fee on AshPerp. Your reward will be denominated in the form of an LP token from the main pool, which you can swap back to a stablecoin or any token of your choice.
Governance Staking Reward formula (on AshSwap):
```jsx
Your Governance Staking Reward (AshSwap) = 50% Trading Fee x your veASH Share
```
You can collect your % share on the [Governance Dashboard](https://app.ashswap.io/gov/).
\*Note: Your snapshot capacity will be taken at the start of the epoch and will be used to calculate the rewards you will receive in the previous epoch. Therefore, if you apply the formula using a different percentage capacity at another time, there is a significant possibility that the calculated result will be inaccurate.
[Weekly Governance Earnings](https://app.ashswap.io/gov) show the summary of fee distributed to veASH holders (50% AshSwap trading fee + 50% AshPerp platform fee)
**Note:**
* Your reward will be updated at 00:00 every Thursday on **AshSwap Mainnet** (and every 30 minutes on **AshSwap Devnet)**.
* If you do not see your reward at 00:00 Thursday or you see the Harvest button light up but the reward is still $0.00, it could be because your reward is too small to appear on the UI.
* Your veASH weight gradually decreases as your escrowed tokens approach their lock expiry.\
\
\&#xNAN;*Does it mean users will lose money every day?*\
Of course not, when your veASH decreases to 0. It also means that the lock period of your ASH is over. You can withdraw your staked ASH right away. However, If you want to keep your veASH stays on the maximum, just extend your lock period.
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